Waiting for a Viable Policy….
Paul Varnell, the independent philosopher, columnist, and all round smart guy, has a very interesting essay on “Sodomy and the Military” over at the Independent Gay Forum (to which I have contributed, um, well, just one essay over the past five years).
Running gay people out of the military isn’t merely malicious; it seems that it’s stupid, as well.
I recommend Steve Miller’s “Culture Watch,” a running commentary/blog on the Independent Gay Forum site.
It seems as if the military is just shooting itself in the foot over the issue of gays in the military. From what I can tell, since Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Pursue *more* gays have been discharged than before. But with troop levels down globally AND an overly ambitious foreign policy to maintain, this seems to lack all logic whatsoever.
Not to mention the (gasp) fact that gays and lesbians can be just as honorable, brave, and effective as any of the other, supposedly better, straighter soldiers.
Tom, I’m obviously for gays in the military, but I need your help rebutting a common argument against them serving-that if they do serve, in close quarters, they’ll try to have sex with the other soldiers (and each other?); I know this is unreasonable, but for some reason at first glance it doesn’t seem terribly unreasonable (of course, firing the Arabic linguists and translators was just STUPID).
@adam
replace the word “gays” by “women” in your posting…read it again…get the picture? A couple of years ago, there was the same argumentation in Germany and Austria. Il faut laisser du temps au temps.
NV
As to Nathalie’s response to Adam’s question, it seems more needs be said. The analogy between gays and women in the military may be more harmful than helpful, as I understand a significant fraction of single women soldiers in the navy return from months at sea pregnant.
As to Varnell’s point:
“But the Pentagon’s rationale for existing policy seems more unsustainable than ever. The Supreme Court’s Lawrence decision striking down state sodomy laws drew on the Constitution’s guarantees of liberty and equality. And the military cannot expect traditional “judicial deference” to insulate it forever from the Constitution. The Pentagon memo alluded to this when it said the proposed revision would “conform more closely to other federal laws and regulations.”
Cannot one respond reasonably that it may be unconstitutional to legally prohibit certain peaceful actions among consenting adults in the privacy of their homes but it doesn’t immediately follow that it then must be unconstitutional to prohibit those actions from occuring in the context of a governmental institution (the military) designed for a specific purpose? Analogously, one cannot constitutionally discriminate against paraplegics (as the Constitution is now interpreted), but one need not fill the military rank and file with them.
Varnell also noted:
“The ban is so irrational that military recruiters do not even pay attention to it. One young gay man told me that when he told the military recruiter he was gay, the recruiter replied, “I didn’t hear anything you just said,” and promptly signed him up. So ending the ban would end an increasingly obvious example of military hypocrisy.”
But I have to wonder if this is evidence of the irrationality of the policy or merely evidence that recruiters who get bonuses based on the number of people they recruit will bend or ignore the rules of recruitment to increase the take-home pay.
Having made these points I should mention that I have no problem with gays in the military, am confident that many have served honorably and well in the past, and applaud the suggested change in the definition of “sodomy” which, as Varnell points out, is now disparately applied only to gays when it is more commonly engaged in by straights. My efforts above are only to avoid facile arguments, not to prevent gays from entering the military.
Ross
there are things that make the job of a soldier different to other jobs, e.g. that a soldier risks his life for his country.
but should not soldiers have a private life like anybody else.
moreover it has been used very often to get rid of uncomfortable people in military telling they would be gay, like with general kiesling in german bundeswehr.
i wonder why in america, the land of the frees that i adore this is a problem. during my german military service there were a lot of gay people in service.
take it easy…
martin
One good rebuttal to the claim that gays will try to have sex with the other men in close quarters is to cite the policies of Britain and Israel–clearly no slouches when it comes to having a strong military. Both these countries have allowed gays to serve openly, and unit cohesion has not suffered. Conservatives will have a very hard time answering that, particularly in the case of Israel.
Here’s a theory, for what it’s worth: adults will have sex, often, no matter what their situation. That’s to be expected. It happens on ships at sea; it happens in war zones. Perhaps it happens even more frequently in war zones, because the fear of death may enhance the need/desire for sex. So if gays are in the military, there will perforce, be more gay sex. So what?
Different cultures have different taboos. The fact that straight Israelis in their military can tolerate gays is a good thing for Israel and their military, but it doesn’t immediately follow that therefore teenager crackers from Kentucky and rednecks from Mississippi will tolerate open gays working side-by-side with them. Should they? Yes. Would the US Military be better off if they did? Yes. Will they in fact, when ordered to by a policy change? Well, it remains to be seen.
Again, given especially that I would rather our military be a tad LESS efficient, I am eager for the experiment. I don’t much mind what redneck privates think, but I nonetheless understand why those more desirous of an optimally functioning military might raise some concerns, even if they personally would also prefer more gays in the military for all the reasons cited in the Varnell article.
I could have been more clear about my own views on this issue. I think that the policy of kicking people out for being gay is, in general, quite irrational and objectionable. In particular, special units of investigators go out of their way (despite the current policy) to find gay men and women in the military and hound them out.
I think that there should be a presumption of full legal equality in military service, but ultimately it’s a presumption, because the military has a job to do: defending the United States from attack. If having gay people in the military made that more difficult, that’s an argument against having gay people in the military. In general, I don’t find that a very persuasive argument, but it’s the best one there is and it deserves a careful examination. Investigating, hounding, hassling, and expelling linguists seems pretty crazy, and snooping around (in a case of two men I knew) the private lives of highly skilled doctors at military hospitals who were being paid far, far less than they could have earned in the private sector, all in order to kick them out of the military, seems completely irrational.
In response to Adam’s point, I think he makes the faulty assumption that gay people somehow are nymphomaniacs who will rest at nothing to sleep with a serviceman (yes I know I’m hyperbolizing but there is a point). The fact is that this isn’t a powderkeg situation where put a few gay men, shake and instant saturnalia. Furthermore, I find it highly specious to assume that as of now there are only straight men serving in the ranks. Despite the regulations currently in place, gay people serve in the military with little problem.
Besides I’d be worried if the our soldiers got spooked at the thought of barracks *before* even entering the theater of battle.
Mr. Radzinsky’s points are well made. (Sorry that I had overlooked Adam W.’s remarks earlier.) I think that there is, in fact, some evidence that the military has disproportionately more gay people than other occupations. The number of terrible situations (and there have been a few) has been remarkably small, certainly in comparison to other potential sources of conflict.
Some people seem concerned that, were the military to have a nondiscrimination policy, lots of swishy, effeminate, girly-men (to use Ann Coulter’s term for her former colleagues at National Review) would sign up. I rather doubt that there’s a large number of such people waiting to join the military. And I also doubt that the images of barracks orgies that so animate some conservative opponents are realistic. Plenty of gay soldiers serve honorably today, without harrassing their fellows or otherwise acting inappropriately. Hounding them out of the military because they sometimes fall in love with other men, including one another (and let’s set aside cases of “fraternization” between officers and the enlisted men and women over whom they have power, which are forbidden regardless of the gender of the parties), just doesn’t make sense. There’s a presumption against such persecution and little reason (although enough to warrant investigation and serious thought) to overcome that presumption.
Brian, it wasn’t me making the assumption, it’s the people who believe that gays shouldn’t serve in the military; I was at a loss of how to counter that one argument, but please don’t think me homophobic.
The military’s purpose is to defend the United States and what it stands for. To defend “the land of the free” while imposing rules that restrict options is nothing less than hypocrisy.
Furthermore, I agree with Brian that it is fallacious to assume that ALL gays in the service will be jumping for sex with fellow servicemen. Might as well say that straight men shouldn’t serve, because ALL of them clearly will be jumping for sex with straight female personnel. Please.
“Brian, it wasn’t me making the assumption, it’s the people who believe that gays shouldn’t serve in the military; I was at a loss of how to counter that one argument, but please don’t think me homophobic.”
I guess I didn’t make clear that you were just echoing others. And I certainly didn’t think you homophobic. I apologize for lumping you with those that are.
Brian, apology accepted. It’s cool.
Gays I don’t have much of a problem with, but Women are a whole other issue. There have been numerous reports over the past two decades or so that women in the military don’t perform anywhere near as well as the guys do (on a whole, at least). It also seems that a large minority of women in the military are using it as a welfare system for single moms. More here:
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=35476
http://www.anzwers.net/hot/arsen/fbpsgm/ botherfrigidstraddle