U.S.S. Iowa as a gay museum?

[onceburned]

Should a battleship be turned into a gay museum in San Francisco?

That is part of the plan offered today by the Historic Ships Memorial at Pacific Square. This group has been trying to get the U.S.S. Iowa donated to San Francisco for years and even managed to get the ship brought from the Atlantic coast to an anchorage near San Francisco.

But the Board of Supervisors shot down the plan in an 8-3 vote in July. They cited their opposition to the war in Iraq and their opposition to the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy of the military.

The plan unveilled today would be a carrot to convince the Board of Supervisors to reconsider. At least part of the ship would contain a museum "honoring the contributions of gays, lesbians, ethnic minorities and women" to the Navy.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/breaking_news/12596559.htm

I think this is a good idea. Not only is there no such museum today, but the U.S.S. Iowa has a history particularly relevant to the Navy's treatment of gays. In 1989, there was an explosion in a turret of the battleship and the Navy concocted a story of a gay murder/suicide, pinning the blame on Clayton Hartwig who died in the blast.

This juicy story was quickly taken up by the press in the United States, but subsequent investigation showed that the "troubled homosexual" story to be a lie. http://www.glaad.org/media/archive_detail.php?id=304

The Navy still owns the U.S.S. Iowa and they might not like a museum aboard iwhich questioned the current Navy policy of excluding gays. But legislation is in the Senate which would make the battleship available to bids from any California city.

This museum makes sense to me. What do you all think?

 

[timberwolf05]

Should a battleship be turned into a gay museum in San Francisco?

That is part of the plan offered today by the Historic Ships Memorial at Pacific Square. This group has been trying to get the U.S.S. Iowa donated to San Francisco for years and even managed to get the ship brought from the Atlantic coast to an anchorage near San Francisco.

But the Board of Supervisors shot down the plan in an 8-3 vote in July. They cited their opposition to the war in Iraq and their opposition to the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy of the military.

The plan unveilled today would be a carrot to convince the Board of Supervisors to reconsider. At least part of the ship would contain a museum "honoring the contributions of gays, lesbians, ethnic minorities and women" to the Navy.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/breaking_news/12596559.htm

I think this is a good idea. Not only is there no such museum today, but the U.S.S. Iowa has a history particularly relevant to the Navy's treatment of gays. In 1989, there was an explosion in a turret of the battleship and the Navy concocted a story of a gay murder/suicide, pinning the blame on Clayton Hartwig who died in the blast.

This juicy story was quickly taken up by the press in the United States, but subsequent investigation showed that the "troubled homosexual" story to be a lie. http://www.glaad.org/media/archive_detail.php?id=304

The Navy still owns the U.S.S. Iowa and they might not like a museum aboard iwhich questioned the current Navy policy of excluding gays. But legislation is in the Senate which would make the battleship available to bids from any California city.

This museum makes sense to me. What do you all think?

=============

no. NO battleship should be a museum for anything.....it should ONLY be a walk through tour for those interested in seeing a real battle ship...that they only have seen in movies.....just like those city folks that never seen a farm or animals.....let em see the real thing.....

wolf.....a proud vet of overseas war

 

[madmanmike]

fuck no. that would be horrible. making a battle ship a gay memorial would dishonor those who served abourd it and were no gay. by this i mean that military veterans are extemely proud of the battles they fought and where they were stationed. by making the iowa a gay memorial or museum it is implied that all who served her were gay. it would dishoner her and the men who seved her. after all we dont make a museum honoring the straight men who fought at wake island or invaded normandy. no why make a museum to honor those who were gay. does it make there sacrifice more just or corageous?

 

[none2_none2]

fuck no. that would be horrible. making a battle ship a gay memorial would dishonor those who served abourd it and were no gay. by this i mean that military veterans are extemely proud of the battles they fought and where they were stationed. by making the iowa a gay memorial or museum it is implied that all who served her were gay. it would dishoner her and the men who seved her. after all we dont make a museum honoring the straight men who fought at wake island or invaded normandy. no why make a museum to honor those who were gay. does it make there sacrifice more just or corageous?

While I don't see the overwhelming need for another military museaum, I don't see what is so offensive about it. IF such a museaum explicitly stated that all were gay on a large ship, then it would simply be a lie that someone would force them to modify. I don't think anybody is trying to re-write history...

What I don't understand is why you would consider something proposed to honor gay military contributions a dishonor to everybody else. If there was a memorial for women, blacks, Japaneese-Americans, Hispanics, German-Americans, Italian-Americans, Jewish-Americans, etc... contributions to the past war efforts, would you consider that a dishonor to everybody else?

People who were homosexual have been known through history to contribute to military battles. We've all heard about the ancient greeks. In the US, they minimize contributions that gays have made currently and in the past because they want to purge the military of all gays because of their own biases. If you want to know what dishonors the military it wouldn't be some memorial. Rather it is the bigotry that still exists in the military towards gays.