What’s wrong with going with a good PR angle, really?
Would it be better to post two disgustingly ugly guys frenching?
A very nice moment, but also a shitty picture in the grand scheme of timeless photographs.
What makes you think the Navy was pushing for a same-sex couple as a “PR thing”? I don’t really think the military is pushing this one way or another. The law changed, the military is complying and that’s it.
Well, the timing of it was propitious. The Iraq war officially ending a couple days before, the Xmas season with people returning home for the holidays, etc. This and the Fourth of July would be the ideal time to engineer such a photo-op.
More importantly, according to a Navy buddy of mine being the first one down the gangplank and being the first one to smooch your sweetie is a much sought-after position on the larger ships (he served on a Nimitz-class carrier), and is something that the Captain himself (or herself!) often awards as a reward for exemplary duty or whatnot – you don’t “just happen” to be the first person in line to disembark at your home port.
So the chances of this being mere happenstance are pretty slim. I’d also point out that a ship’s captain making the national news (as well as very likely a front-page mention in Stars and Stripes) is not a bad way to boost your career. Now, whether this was the captain’s doing or a larger effort by the Navy, I couldn’t say, but I’d bet on the latter.
You made a pretty convincing argument for the former, I’d say. :)
The top military brass tends to be overwhelmingly fundies, at least in the Air Force, so they’d be doing the opposite.
Maybe, but it just seems to be getting so much press that I have a hard time believing it wasn’t coordinated up the chain of command a bit too.
Sounds like random chance to me, unless you want to postulate that someone rigged the raffle.
If the captain runs the raffle or makes the draw himself, I wouldn’t be surprised. As mentioned, it’s an opportunity for a historical moment, a huge PR boost and a feel-good story, (for sane people,) that could result in personal promotion. Win-win for all involved.
She even admits she didn’t buy that many tickets compared to some. That doesn’t prove anything, but certainly lowers the probability of such a major event occurring entirely by chance.
I don’t think they would pull rigging the raffle, if it came out it would be a huge hit to morale as a whole as its a big deal I am sure to win that and be the first one to be able to kiss your loved one. It just doesn’t seem worth the risk.
I’ll be in my bunk.
But what about JeffL’s post, brett?
Why do you need to start ruining multiple threads this way? Keep your idiocy and trolling out of every thread I post in please.
Listen folks when brett is the voice of sanity your theories are dumber than shit.
The Navy isn’t full of old ass fat people, although yes they are total pansies. Odds are pretty good tha any gay couple that got randomly picked would be good looking since they’re liable to be young, reasonably fit, cleaned up and in a mostly attractive uniform.
Gay people make up ten percent of the population. The top ten percent. Take note!
Jeez people. Gaeta herself said in her interview she suspects some fellow crew members stuffed the ballot box, buying tickets on her behalf. So yeah, there may well have been a “conspiracy”, but it’s more on the level of “Hey, let’s elect that couple we like as homecoming king and queen” in high school, not some big political statement by the Navy itself.
As far as them being attractive: You know, contrary to Free Republic, not all lesbians are fat butch bulldogs who turn to women because they can’t get men. By the very nature of the military, they’re likely to be young and fit. Add a sharp uniform and it’s not terribly hard to be reasonably attractive. A quick google image search for “Navy first kiss”, ignoring pictures of Gaeta and Snell themselves, reveals remarkably few ugly couples.
Unless photojournalists hang out at all military docks for “First Kiss” events, I still think it was an orchestrated event.
Heh. Wasn’t it Churchill who summed up Royal Naval tradition as “rum, sodomy, and the lash”?
I am sure they know the results before the ship lands so the picture could have been orchestrated but the results of the raffle not be.
Lookist!