http://www.qctimes.net/articles/2006...9312076692.txt

USS Iowa could be minority museum

By Los Angeles Times
Turning a battleship around is never easy — especially in the politically roiled waters of the San Francisco Bay.

Last July, San Francisco’s county supervisors voted 8-3 against bringing the vintage World War II battleship Iowa to San Francisco as a permanent tourist attraction. Some opponents said they were taking a stand against both the war in Iraq and a military that boots out gays and lesbians, a powerful faction in local politics.

But now, advocates of

the move are trying to woo

the supervisors with

a promise to create a

privately funded dockside museum that will tell the story of minorities in the military, including lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender troops.

“Our feeling was that this would make it a better fit for San Francisco,” said Jim Maloney, director of the Military Education Initiative, a group that supports the lifting of restrictions on gays in the military. “Adding in the component of LGBT service would be obviously quite unique,” he said.

The new plan also calls for an annual peace symposium on the Iowa, which has a storied record of combat in the South Pacific and off the Korean coast.

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s favorite battleship, the Iowa carried him to Casablanca, Morocco, in 1943, en route to a conference of Allied leaders in Tehran, Iran.

In 1989, 47 crew members were killed in a shipboard explosion that officials blamed on a sailor who they said was involved in a failed gay relationship. The Navy later backed away from that explanation, ruling that the explosion was an accident and apologizing to the family of the dead sailor.

“That’s a story that deserves to be told,” Maloney said.

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Thoughts?

 

Fixed for you.

But the title is wrong.

 

That's got to be the WORST bolding I've seen.

 

Yeah, how is that for irony? The city turns the ship away because of the military's stance on gay rights, and it turns out that a gay relationship may have caused the death of almost 50 crewmen... nice, eh?

That doesn't even begin to address the human toll in terms of people who were seriously injured or crippled, and the hardship thus placed on military families. If you ask me, SF owes us this one .

 

You know, I used to have a little more respect for you and your opinion. As it was CLEARLY stated in your original post, the "explosion was an accident." In otherwords, NO fault to the soldier who may or maynot have been gay.

As dumb and stupid as it is that SF is turning away more rev. just because of the Military's view towards gays, I don't think they owe us anything. Isn't SF still a demiliarized zone?

 

Huh? You know how critical thinking works, right?

The guy that killed almost 50 people and probably maimed/disfigured/disabled many more was gay, whether or not he did it deliberately or not! It is possible that the failed relationship was a motive if it indeed was a deliberate act, but the military decided to classify it as an accident. Did you want to ask one of the dead guys, or do we need an episode of Cold Case to figure it out? At this point, it can be called a rumor, but it's a gay one, mmmmm k?

I believe SF has one or more military ships including a WWII submarine just north of pier 39 (been on it twice) and they used to have another navy ship... not sure if they are still there though.

 

So you think the Navy, the protector of all gays, is covering for some gay dude? And like you said this all SPECULATION, and according to the Navy is FALSE SPECULATIONS. So who do you trust more the Navy or some random homophobes? I'll take the Navy for 100 Alex.

 

Uh, where do you think the gay story came from? Gay's blowing up their fellow seamen is NOT good PR for navy recruiting.