What would Naomi say?

Don't you just love it when political correctness goes too far?

Naomi Robson loves a juicy story about political correctness, and for a minute I thought I'd found her one.

Randomly surfing ABC News Online in an attempt to fill this blog with all sorts of "newsworthy" material, I stumbled upon this article:

"AFGHANISTAN MISSION RENAMED OVER GAY CONNOTATIONS"

Now, first off I thought that this was another case of people not wanting to offend the gay community - remember the "Fairy Penguin" fiasco? But no, this story isn't about political correctness at all. It just reeks of homophobia - still a real problem in the armed forces.

"Dutch troops in Afghanistan have renamed their peacekeeping operation, fearing that the original name of Unicorn has homosexual connotations, the Defence Ministry said.

"It would seem that in Anglo-Saxon culture the mythological figure of the unicorn is associated with homosexuality," ministry spokesman Otte Beeksma told AFP.

"In Kandahar our men are working alongside Canadian, British and Australian troops," Beeksma added. "They don't want this connotation and to avoid remarks they have changed the name of their mission."

Unicorn will become the more mundane Uruzgan Taskforce, Beeksma said, subject to approval by the ministry."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200605/s1639905.htm

Now don't get me wrong - I'm not blaming the Dutch Ministry of Defence here, we all know The Netherlands has a very open, tolerant atmosphere when it comes to homosexuality - hell, they were one of the first places to legalise gay marriage. What I'm worried about, is that in this day and age, they still felt the need to change the name of their mission to ensure their soliders weren't taunted by the armed forces of nations such as Australia.

Wouldn't you think that by that age you'd be so over the "fag" or "homo" jokes and realise that gay people are the same as any other human being? Of course not - this is the military we're talking about.

And it's not just homosexuality the armed forces seem to have a problem with. It seems that the appointment of a woman as second in charge at Australia's largest Naval base has put a few military noses out of joint.

From ABC News Online:

"One of the Navy's most senior female officers last night told the 7.30 Report she had endured years of mistreatment and verbal abuse.

Lieutenant Commander Robyn Fahy was the second-in-command at HMAS Stirling in Perth, Australia's largest operational navy base.

But six years ago she was stood down after a Navy-appointed doctor wrongly diagnosed her as having a serious mental illness.

Although she has just been offered another position, Lieutenant Commander Fahy says she could never go back to a military workplace after what she has been through."

http://abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200605/s1639202.htm

She told the 7:30 Report: "At one time they threatened to crucify me and I couldn't, I suppose, conceptualise an organisation that talked about loyalty and integrity and then matched that up with the manner with which they were behaving - not just towards myself but towards my family,"

I know that by nature the military must be aggressive, but these sorts of incidents are unacceptable in the 21st Century and must be stamped out. If a female employee at any sort of non-military institution were to be bullied and harrassed in such a way, it would have been dealth with swiftly and accordingly - as we've seen in the past.

I reckon we just let Naomi sort them all out - she's always got something to say...