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Gays In The Military, Part Two

Posted by DAVID ADESNIK in Politics, War.
Jul 5th, 2009 | Comments

(Part one is here.) Michael Goldfarb has an interesting suggestion: Why not allow gay servicemembers to serve openly in roles that wouldn’t threaten unit cohesion? After all, women are allowed to serve in some roles but not in others. Why not extend that logic to gays and lesbians? Michael writes:

It’s madness for the service to discharge gay translators and the like. But the military leadership still seems to believe that the core of the policy must be preserved in order to maintain the effectiveness of combat units — politicians from both parties are unlikely to question that assessment.

Forgive the double entendre, but I wonder if the threat to unit cohesion is any different on the front lines than it is in the rear. The scenario often brought up with regard to gays in the military is “What if he’s looking at me in the shower?” No one I know asks, “What if he’s looking at me instead of firing back at those insurgents over there?” In that regard, the analogy to women doesn’t hold; there is a physical reason that women are restricted from serving in combat units (although when you’re fighting an insurgency, any unit can find itself in combat).

Leaving aside the logic, I’d be more than glad to support a repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” for non-combat units, if there’s a consensus behind that approach in the military. If gays can serve openly in non-combat units, I’m fairly confident that their service will earn them the right, in the not too distant future, to serve in combat units as well.

Cross-posted at Conventional Folly

  • Father_Time
    Nobody cares about "gay translators" being discharged. Just not that many to affect anything at all.

    Michael Goldfarb's suggestion is a moot point. Women live, sleep, shower, in separate quarters rooms, and, barracks. Michael Goldfarb's suggestion does nothing to preserve "unit cohesion" because non-combat units need the same cohesion as combat units and does not address living quarters.

    It also causes another problem. Male gay personnel getting special treatment by not having to serve in combat units, while non-gay males have too.

    Besides there are women in combat units. There are also women pilots and crewmen that fly into combat.
    Women crewmembers of ships that fight other ships. There are women combat communicators and equipment maintenance crews that may see combat….etc.. They all live, shower, sleep in separate quarters. Maybe you can suggest separate quarters? Won't work either. How are you going to keep the gays from the gays???

    To be frank, heterosexuals in the military simply don’t want gay people around because they are disgusted by gay culture and practice. This goes far beyond the military. However I’m sure you know this. So why damage or possibly destroy our military retention rates just to allow an extreme minority sub-culture to openly practice their behavior in uniform? Its just stupid.
  • Dr J
    "It also causes another problem. Male gay personnel getting special treatment by not having to serve in combat units, while non-gay males have too."

    That's the problem? That's what you're defending as the solution. DADT keeps gays safe from the hazards of combat, while their hetero cousins are getting their bits blown off.

    "[Heterosexuals in the military] are disgusted by gay culture and practice"

    In some cases, yes. *That's* the problem.
  • Lit3Bolt
    After years of making military culture exceedingly homoerotic, military leaders naturally assume gays wouldn't be able to control themselves. It would be like the Tailhook scandal every day except, you know...in the butt. EWWWWWW. Then gayness would spread like wildfire across our military forces because everyone knows, since homosexuality is a choice, that most heterosexuals simply resist their gay urges. But when confronted with hot sweaty mansex in front of them, they would simply have to succumb. And we all know that gays proposition everything thing in sight, including men with guns who believe that all gays are hellbound. That's how lustfilled the gays are.

    It's very simple and I don't understand why gays advocate to be in the military. After all, we don't have gay priests, or gay doctors, or gay firefighters, or gay policemen. There are gay scientists, but all that science stuff is kind of gay anyway. But I agree, gays cannot function in any stressful situation around other men or be in any position of authority. They're simply too busy having mansex, and they're actively seeking to recruit!! What more fertile ground could they "till," so to speak, than the military?
  • LOL Lit3Bolt, you nailed it, er, so to speak.
  • Father_Time
    No Dr_J, you have it backwards....

    We now have DADT. So no one knows who the gay people are. So there is no preferences and no special treatment.

    Yes people are disgusted and yes that is the problem. Forcing it upon people is certainly NOT going to help.
  • Father_Time
    Lit3Bolt--

    Let me put it to you this way. In Vietnam we had no problem blowing away those we hated. Accidental weapons discharge, send out on patrol or to an OP under manned, or simply by Fragging. You've heard of Fragging haven’t you? The military in general, and, in combat specifically are no places to be hated.

    I can't, and, overall we can't do anything about the hate except talk about it. There is a BIG difference with being a civilian living where ever you wish and with whom ever you wish than there is being in the military living where ever you are told and with whom ever you are told to live with. "Ewwww" can turn into "bang" real easy.

    We have just seen a young sailor in the news murdered in California. It could have been a hate crime committed against him because he was gay. The murder didn't even occur during combat. How many hate crimes are you going to hear about that occurred in combat? DADT is undoubtedly protecting lives right now.
  • MReynolds
    Father Time:

    So our professional military are really a bunch of would-be murderers? Funny how few race-based murders we had after integrating the military.

    Don't project your illness on good men fighting for their country.
  • Sounds like a great way to lead many soldiers to conclude that 'my farsi is good enough - I don't need an interpreter' or to have others conclude 'I'm not hurt bad enough to go to the hospital'

    When we are talking about service in Moslem countries, is the entire story told by how rank and file US soldiers feel about homosexuality pro or con? With our vaunted cultural sensitivity, we should consider whether the 'unenlightened' sources or assets that we desire information from would be offended by having to talk to an openly gay translator.

    Could this color the information we are given? Should we conclude that this will not occur simply because political correctness informs us that it should not?

    If there is a place where the concept of 'human terrain' is useful, it is in this conversation. And we would do well to employ a doctrine that found credit in the 70s: look at our own terrain (the terrain problem presented to our enemies) as well as the enemy's terrain. In the 70s, I flew the border trace along the Fulda Gap many, many times - but the generals were not interested in photographs looking across the border - they had 25 years of looking at those pictures. They wanted pictures of the terrain we occupied looking back at our own positions so they could see what the enemy generals were seeing and use this as a minor way to 'get inside the enemy's head' and anticipate solutions the enemy would apply to the terrain problems they were able to observe.

    Some of this type of thinking is probably in order here, no?
  • Father_Time
    MReynolds-

    The military is in the business of killing. Don't be naive. There were many problems with race integration in the military. Especially during the Vietnam era. However today, I am more concerned with retention rates than with murders.

    Race has nothing to do with gay rights issues. Race does not have the Choice not be a member of a Race. A gay person can simply choose not to be openly gay such as with DADT until leaving the military.
    The military leadership wants DADT to remain and I agree.
  • NRafter530
    You have to be incredibly naive if you don't think soldiers know if other soldiers are gay or not. Take it from someone with friends in the military...they know...they don't care.
  • NRafter530
    honestly, if someone is going to back out of defending their country because they ley gays serve openly in the military, then that's not someone I really want defending my country anyway.

    What kind of patriot are you when you decide something as small as gay men openly serving in the military can change your desire to defend your country...obviously, their heart really isn't there.
  • Right on NRafter. I guess the defenders of DADT have no gaydar. But how about if hetero guys weren't allowed to have pictures of their wives or girlfriends or even pinups? Who cares?
  • DLS
    I think the real problem here is that along with whining and agitation, you're starting to see people make up all kinds of rationalizations rather than simply note two or three pertinent facts:

    1. Most people don't object to gays serving in the military;

    2. We have females in the military, which constitute an enormously greater problem with "cohesion";

    3. The Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy is probably going to be ended eventually, and in the meantime, the policy is starting to be gutted. Isn't Gates starting to specify some exceptions to the policy? Such incrementalism is real progress and seeking more exceptions to the policy seems to me to be what should be sought at this time.
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