sf wrote:

> On Mon, 14 Jul 2008 12:01:48 -0400, blake murphy
> > wrote:
>
> >if *** people want to do something crazy like get married or join the
> >army, let 'em knock themselves out, i say.
>
> Now that you bring it up... the army has lowered standards to the
> point where they're enlisting criminals (convicted felons) now, but
> still draws the line at openly *** people. How dumb is that?

It is interesting that you talk about them lowering standards but excluding gays. Does that mean that
gays are substandard and should be included with the other substandard types?

FWIW, there used to be minimum height and weight standards for police officers here. About 20 years ago
they dropped those standards to facilitate employment equity. The argument was members of some groups
had hard time meeting those standards, specifically women and orientals, and also that it was no longer
necessary for police to have to rely on brawn and brute strength to deal with people. Shortly after
that policy change I had to attend police college for a three week course and I had first hand exposure
to the new recruits. There were a lot of women and a lot of orientals in the police cadet program who
would not have met the old standards, but all the white and black men were big guys. It seems that the
new lower(?) standards only applied to those previously excluded groups and if you were a white or
black male you still had to meet the old standards.