To Serve In The Armed Forces, For Queen And Country.

[Liberal Crozier]

In Canada, patriotic gays and lesbians who love their country and wish to serve in our integrated Canadian Armed Forces do so openly with pride and with full integration without any concerns about unit cohesion.

Whether the man or woman is serving in the regular or reserve components, or graduated from the Reserve Officer Training Programme or the Officer or Warrant Officer Candidate Programmes or enlisted at the local enlistment centre, Gays and Lesbians are serving honourably and have lived and died in the Afghanistan conflict. In fact we are still in Afghanistan, but have never supported or sent troops to Iraq to unseat Saddam Hussein. Call us crazy, we thought that Al Quaeda was Osama bin Laden, the Bush family friends, and not the butcher Hussein.

Canadian military chaplains must perform same-sex marriages for Canadian servicemen and women. If they are Roman Catholic or otherwise opposed, they must politely and with civility, request the services of a clergy person or military judge advocate willing to perform the ceremony.

Oh- ever since I was a kid, I would listen to Sgt. Preston of the Yukon Territory RCMP and his dog King, getting his man even he tricked him back into Canada from the Alaska Territory.

Yes, both the RCMP Academy and the enlistment centres welcome gay and lesbians qualified for either programme. RCMP's same sex couples marry.

If you are a US citizen and wish to serve in the Canadian Armed Forces, you can do so. You are limited to the reserves, and have other limitations placed upon you, but service in the Canadian Armed Forces honourably is a fast track to citizenship and full military privileges of regular service and officer or warrant service.

[Liberal Crozier]

We read the book and saw the movie. Crozier and I even met one of the fighter pilots on a flight one day. He and his wife were professional African-American senior citizens with pride in their accomplishments and those they inculcated in their equally-successfull children.

At the debut of America's entry into WWII in Dec 41/ Jan 42, it was clear that the plurality of officers were graduates of our prestigious military academies or notable military schools. In order to win the war, it became obvious that OCS and ROTC programmes would have to be created in order to commission junior officers. Infantry battlefield promotions were also common.

The minimum academic requirement for commissioned officer was a high school diploma. Although college undergraduates and graduates were part of the mix, the statistics show that roughly 76% of all newly commissioned officers were merely high school graduates with one semester or less of undergraduate university credits. Those, of course, were the White Anglo-Saxon Protestants or lace-curtain Roman Catholics from parochial secondary school institutions or universities of higher learning.

African Americans who wished to serve in the early part of the WII before US entry (1939-41) fought and/or were commissioned and flew in the the European campaign for the RCAF. Later Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., West Point graduate shunned in silence for four years by Christians, led the band as a lieutenant colonel and then colonel. He only rose to the rank of brigadier in his whole career.

Okay, ALL the Tuskegee airmen, or 100% held at least an accredited undergraduate university degree. They won over 800 medals,,,and in escorting white southern boys who lynched their daddies...never lost not one plane, or lost one of those boys who would return in 45-46 to oppress them again for another few decades.

I understand patriotism....even first generation Americans know patriotism. But you must make your decision to remain or join millions of expatriates abroad who believe that US freedom and democracy is not only under seige, but is held in bondage by a few families and corporate entitites intent on creating global headquarters for their hegemony.

[NathanATX]

I love a lot of things about America and I know we are very blessed as a country... but I rarely feel patriotic.

My reasons for wanting to stay in the US are:

1. Friends & family
2. Familiarity with the culture, my business, etc...
3. Concern for those who couldn't leave, especially the young people.
4. Wondering if I am being too self-centered to be willing to leave my brothers & sisters who are in the trenches.

My reasons for wanting to leave are:
1. Fear of the growing theocon/dominionist poison.
2. Wanting to honor my love with the committment of marriage.
3. Wanting to raise a family with the same expectations of safety & liberty as my heterosexual neighbors.

I almost want to have my family out of harms way, but still be able to be in the trenches fighting for justice.

[Liberal Crozier]

Crozier and I empathise with both of you, and understand why you are conflicted. If you have German, Moravian or Czech ancestry, so much part of the Texas immigration story, then it is clear that the trip in fourth class steerage was hard, expensive, dangerous and permanent.

Canadian cities are for the most part, merely several hours to minutes away from the international border. Your choice is air, train and automobile and TX is merely a difficult but possible drive-through to Dallas with two drivers.

I know that many of we Canadians believe Benjamin Franklin when he admonished that " the price of liberty is eternal vigilance." The theocons still want perdition, but we will succeed.

Having won our freedom in Parliament, where even today a majority of all parties want us to retain marriage forever, the Courts are always primed to reiterate the obvious.

The reason, IMHO, why Latin America is a series of revolutions one after another is that those who fight as revolutionary activists never become democratic evolutionaries who seek peace, joy, happiness and tranquility rather than another fight for generations never resolved.