The Daily Skunk

It’s Time To End “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”

A writer takes some risk writing about a subject close to his heart - after all, our passions sometimes blind us to otherwise glaring truths.  But in this paper, I will attempt to do just this.  I am writing about the United States military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy (henceforth, DADT) to correct a long-standing wrong on my part.  When I was a young man, I was extremely conservative.  I would like to be able to say that I’d been a young Libertarian; however, I also chose to express my conservatism on social issues.  One of the issues on which I had been most vociferous was the issue of homosexuals in the military.  Ironically, today, as in the mid 1990’s, I remain opposed to DADT; however, my reasons have changed substantially.  For example, I now no longer believe that homosexuality is wrong or that “those with a homosexual orientation are not suitable for combat service,” to quote a paper I wrote in 1998.  One may wonder what the relevance of this personal information might have to this discussion.  I suggest there are two key things to take away.  First, despite the vitriol and hate slung so fervently in the trenches between social liberals and social conservatives over whether or not homosexuality is wrong, I submit that the fact that I changed my mind indicates that our opinions about “private social issues” are not as inalterable as we might suppose.  And let me be frank, I was not someone who merely disapproved of homosexual behaviour, but kept it to myself.  I was an actual homophobe.  If I was capable of changing my mind, then this means that others might be able to change theirs.  Second, because I have so much experience with these arguments against out homosexuals in the military (after all, used many of them during my time as a conservative), I can provide additional insights into the mind of a person who holds these socially conservative views.

In this paper, I will argue that the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy is morally reprehensible because it is: (1) a bigoted policy that severely undermines the moral authority of the United States government and the only law in the land under which an employer may freely and openly discriminate against an employee on the basis of his or her sexual orientation; and (2) a policy that inflicts numerous psychological wounds upon both closeted and out homosexuals by both forcing service members to “live a lie” twenty-four hours a day and invading their privacy to investigate their “crime,” homosexual behaviour.  In addition to the moral cost of maintaining the DADT policy, I argue that DADT is inimical to our recruitment and retention objectives.  Finally, I will address, at length, the major counter-argument against my position: namely, that integrating homosexuals into the military will “undermine unit cohesion.”

I.

“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell?” Is Morally Reprehensible

Before I begin to sketch the moral case against DADT, we ought to briefly discuss the specific features of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”  According to DADT, or Federal Law Pub. L. 103-160 (10 U.S.C. § 654), there are three conditions under which “a member of the armed forces shall be separated from the armed forces:” (1) if the member “has engaged in, attempted to engage in, or solicited another to engage in a homosexual act or acts;” (2) if the member, “has stated that he or she is a homosexual or bisexual, or words to that effect;” or (3) if the member, “has married or attempted to marry a person known to be of the same biological sex.”[1] DADT stipulates that one may protest separation if the following obtain:

“(A) such conduct is a departure from the member’s usual and customary behavior; (B) such conduct, under all the circumstances, is unlikely to recur; (C) such conduct was not accomplished by use of force, coercion, or intimidation; (D) under the particular circumstances of the case, the member’s continued presence in the armed forces is consistent with the interests of the armed forces in proper discipline, good order, and morale; and (E) the member does not have a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts.“[2]

The law was originally championed by President Bill Clinton.  Prior to 1993, the military had a fully fledged ban on homosexual service.  Noted scholar on homosexuality and the military, Nathaniel Frank, describes DADT as, “…the result of a bitter battle over the acceptability of homosexuality in the United States.  Its final outcome was supposed to allow gays and lesbians to serve quietly, minimize troop loss, and protect the privacy of all service members so they would not be distracted.”[3] However, Frank quickly notes that this was not the result of the program.  He writes:

“‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’… requires the discharge of service members found to have engaged in homosexual conduct.  It was cast… as a compromise that allows gays and lesbians to serve in the military while regulating only their behaviour, not their identity.  That is, it is supposed to punish conduct, not status.  But… the policy actually bans gay people, not just homosexual acts.  This is because the policy prohibits conduct that gay people, by definition, engage in, while allowing straight men and women who engage in the same conduct to serve.“[4]

He goes on to state that the law,

“does not even require that a person engage in sexual conduct to prompt a discharge - it’s enough for two men to hold hands or engage in ‘any bodily contact’ that a ‘reasonable person would understand to demonstrate a propensity’ to satisfy sexual desire with someone of the same sex.  It’s even prohibited to make a ’statement’ that one is attracted to a member of the same sex.”[5]

It is this last criterion (”the member does not have a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts”) that Nathaniel Frank is so worried about.  And rightfully so.  Because the law stipulates that “…The term “homosexual act” means - (A) any bodily contact, actively undertaken or passively permitted, between members of the same sex for the purpose of satisfying sexual desires; and (B) any bodily contact which a reasonable person would understand to demonstrate a propensity or intent to engage in an act described in subparagraph (A),” it is unclear how the ban is not a ban of gay people.  Nathaniel Frank writes:

“In reality, the policy targets same-sex desire itself, and bans what gay people, by definition, do, while allowing straight people who engage in occasional gay fun to go right on serving.  It is no more conduct-based than a rule that bars people from praying to Jesus - this is what Christians do, just as having sexual relationships with people of the same sex is what gays do.”[6]

There are two essential points here.  First, the ban is not a ban on gay behaviour, but instead, gay people.  According to DADT, homosexual behaviour is not grounds for dismissal, provided that the behaviour is “a departure from the member’s usual and customary behavior,” “unlikely to recur,” and was “not accomplished by use of force, coercion, or intimidation.”  Thus, as a consequence, under the criteria established under DADT, a straight male soldier who had consensual sex with another male and whose behaviour satisfied the aforementioned criteria would not necessarily be separated from the armed forces.  On the other hand, however, a closeted homosexual male soldier who has never had sexual relations with another male, would, under the criteria outlined in the policy, be separated from the military.  A gay soldier must only satisfy the criteria of “having a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts,” before he or she is qualifies for separation from the armed forces.  Hence, heterosexual troops “who engage in occasional gay fun” get to “go right on serving,” while homosexual troops are persecuted for loving glances, hand-holding, and any other suspicious behaviour that suggests “the propensity to engage in homosexual acts.”  Furthermore, the law specifies that if a member of the armed forces violates the DADT policy, the armed forces “shall” separate that individual from the armed forces, not “may” separate that individual from the armed forces.  This suggests that application of the policy is not ultimately up to the commanding officer’s discretion, but rather, the policy must be enforced unless the exculpatory conditions are met.  Hence, officers who have homosexual soldiers who cannot meet the exculpatory conditions must apply the policy to these soldiers.  This results in the gross waste of money, talent, and morale, as the following anecdote will illustrate:

[Joseph] Steffan was a battalion leader and soloist for the school’s glee club.  He was one of the ten highest-ranking midshipmen at the academy.  He had excellent performance and conduct records, and his traning had cost an estimated $110,000 in taxpayer money.  When the military decided to dismiss him, it claimed that as a homosexual, he had ‘insufficient aptitude for military service.’… After his request [to graduate (he had a few weeks left)] was denied, his battalion commander, told him, ‘You were a great midshipman, Joe.  You could easily have been the brigade commander.  You can do anything you want in life.”‘[7]

Second, one must ask whether or not banning the behaviours of a group that is explicitly defined as “individuals who exhibit a specific set of behaviours” is not tantamount to banning the group itself?  After all, Frank asks us, “Is banning people who pray to Jesus any different from banning Christians?  Is a restaurant that bars creatures that bark not a restaurant that bars dogs?  [So,] [i]s a policy that bars people who engage in homosexual behaviour not a policy that bars homosexuals?”[8] Thus, while this policy may have been advanced on the grounds that it only prohibits behaviour, not sexual identification, the policy actually bans gay people, and not gay behaviour.  Having now briefly introduced the policy and explained its relevant stipulations, we will address the moral legitimacy of such a policy.

II

“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Is Morally Reprehensible

While, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is morally reprehensible for several reasons; this paper will focus on the two strongest arguments: (1) DADT is immoral because it discriminates against out homosexual soldiers and (2) DADT is immoral because it is psychologically abusive.  The fact that DADT discriminates against homosexual soldiers is established - the previous section conclusively demonstrated that it is clearly not behaviour that the policy intends to ban, but the identity itself.  Hence, dispute in this section is not going to concern whether such discrimination occurs, but rather whether such discrimination is morally wrong.  I submit to you that it is.  Political cartoonist Chan Lowe posted a moving cartoon on April 14, 2009.  The cartoon depicts three identical military coffins draped with American flags lying side by side.  The caption under the picture read, “Which is the gay one?”  I argue, first and foremost, that discrimination against homosexual troops is morally opprobrious because homosexual men and women are willing to give up their lives for our civil rights.  It is patently absurd for us to send a generation of men and women to fight and die for our liberty, all the while maintaining that they are not eligible for the same freedoms as their heterosexual counterparts.  Indeed, this is what the United Kingdom discovered.  Steve Johnston, head of the Armed Forces Lesbian and Gay Association in Great Britain, writes:

In May of last year, the judges in Strasbourg met to look at the United Kingdom policy.  And in the following September, they announced that the United Kingdom government was in breach of some of the articles of the European Convention of Human Rights, mainly Article 8, the right to privacy, and part of the convention called Article 14, the right not to be discriminated against.  The United Kingdom government was forced to review its policy… [and] on January 12, the secretary of state for defence stood up and literally and quietly said that the United Kingdom no longer had this policy… gays and lesbians could serve openly [at last].[9]

The rationale behind the United Kingdom’s decision is clear and precise - treating gay and lesbian soldiers differently from straight soldiers runs contradictory to the very notion of human rights and fundamental human equality.  The U.K. realized that regardless of how difficult it would be to integrate homosexuals (in hindsight, the integration was painless according to most sources), morality required them to do it.  The question of whether or not gay soldiers could behave like straight soldiers (i.e. pretend to be heterosexual as required by DADT) never arose because the United Kingdom realized that it had to accept homosexuals as homosexuals, not as homosexuals masquerading as heterosexuals.  Noted gay advocate, Frank Kameny, concurs and expands the argument:

“I do not see the NAACP and CORE worrying about which chromosome and gene produces a black skin, or about the possibility of bleaching the Negro [to "solve" racism]. I do not see any great interest on the part of the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation League in the possibility of solving problems of anti-Semitism by converting Jews to Christianity.  In all of these minority groups, we are interested in obtaining rights for our respective minorities as Negroes, as Jews, and as HOMOSEXUALS. Why we are Negroes, Jews, or Homosexuals is totally irrelevant, and whether we can be changed to Whites, Christians, or Heterosexuals is equally irrelevant.”[10]

I suggest that the United States, if it does not lift the ban on openly gay service, will further erode its moral authority.  The European Court of Human Rights found conclusively that the United Kingdom was in violation of the European Convention of Human Rights.  The pressure that body exerted on the United Kingdom compelled that government to change its policy.  Obviously the European Court of Human Rights cannot impose rulings on the United States government because the US is not a participant nation in the court.  However, the US is a member of the United States and is in direct violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which has been adopted by the United Nations.  The United States’ DADT policy is in breach of Article 1, “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood;” Article 7, “All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination;” and Article 16, “Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.”  The policy violates Articles 1 and 7 because the policy does not treat heterosexual and homosexual soldiers as true equals in the public sphere or in the legal sphere.  Furthermore, the policy violates Article 16 by explicitly prohibiting soldiers from homosexual marriage, a provision explicit in the UDHR.  This is not an argument for the UN to try to force the United States to change its policy - indeed, according to many legal scholars this would be impossible.  However, what should be understood is that the United States’s DADT policy is incompatible with the international understanding of human rights.  It also appears to flatly contradict the moral claim upon which our nation was predicated, “that all men are created equal.”  One must wonder how for how long the United States government will exercise any moral authority, given that it simultaneously officially discriminates against homosexuals.

Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, the policy is psychologically abusive to homosexual soldiers.  Recall, for a moment, the standard established as sufficient to separate a member from the armed forces in which he or she serves.  Nathaniel Frank writes that the law, “…does not even require that a person engage in sexual conduct to prompt a discharge - it’s enough for two men to… engage in ‘any bodily contact’ that a ‘reasonable person would understand to demonstrate a propensity’ to satisfy sexual desire with someone of the same sex. It’s even prohibited to make a ’statement’ that one is attracted to a member of the same sex.”[11] When Frank clarifies that the term “statement” covers “emails, letters, tapped phone calls, romantic photos, the possession of gay-themed videos, or anything the military’s ‘reasonable person’ finds incriminating can be - and have been - considered admissible evidence of wrongdoing,” [12] the application of the policy begins to become more clear.  The policy renders homosexual service members to constantly live in fear of betraying their orientation.  C. Dixon Osborn of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network writes:

First, think of the human costs to the individual lesbian, gay, or bisexual service members.  Imagine the cost of being forced to live a lie twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.  Your friends and colleagues ask you, ‘Why aren’t you married?’ [or] ‘Who was that on the phone?’ [or] ‘With whom did you share your vacation?’ [or] ‘Who’s this in the photo?’  With every question you have to lie, evade, and dissemble.  If you were heterosexual, you would not have to think twice about those questions.  But as a gay man, lesbian, or bisexual, you have to be on guard twenty-four hours a day, because if you let the truth slip, you may lose your job.  ‘Don’t ask’ is a myth.

Osborn makes a good point; DADT is a misnomer, because “asking” is unavoidable.  Once one realizes how little evidence is necessary to separate a soldier from the armed forces, one realizes that from sun-up to sun-down, gay soldiers are forced to live a lie and conceal anything that might indicate their sexual orientation.  Osborn continues to catalogue the intense scrutiny soldiers are under.  He continues, “Imagine fearing that every click on your phone is CID or NCIS or OSI listening in to your conversations.  Or wondering whose car is parked across the street from your apartment building.”[13] Thus, not only is one forced to lie and evade, but one must constantly fear supervision.  Hence, soldiers are put in a situation in which they may never let down their guard, as the one moment they do, their jobs are in jeopardy.  This means that gay soldiers are not able to develop true friends, confidants, as they must constantly fear investigation.  One may worry that the case against DADT is conveniently tight.  Indeed, if it is the case that the government is conducting investigations into the personal lives of soldiers and trampling their privacy, one would be hard pressed indeed to defend the policy.  However, this is exactly the case.  For example, “Marine Corporal Craig Haack’s nightmare started when a criminal investigator knocked on his door, entered his barracks room, overturned his bed, and took his computer, computer disks, personal journals, and address books, looking for information about his sexual orientation.”[14] Corporal Haack is not alone according to Osborn.  Osborn tells us that when investigators investigated Technical Sargeant Daryl Gandy, “criminal investigators entered his workplace and handcuffed him in front of his co-workers, saying he was under investigation for being gay.”[15] Given that “[i]t is not uncommon for investigators to seize and analyze diaries, computers, computer disks, address books, and e-mail looking for information,” and that, “it is not uncommon for inquiry officers to ask 90-150 questions… to gather data,” and that the reports generated by these inquiries run “200-500 pages long and several inches thick,” we are not discussing a reasonable policy.[16]

The psychological abuses inflicted on homosexual soldiers stem not only from forcing soldiers to live lies, but also from the environment of assumed heterosexuality.  Osborn again calls our attention to the plight of the soldier, writing:

“This year the Pentagon’s inspector general did a survey of 75,000 service members and found that 80 percent of them heard antigay comments in their unit.  In the vast majority of these cases, the commanders heard the comments and took no steps to stop them.  Imagine what it is like to live, work, command, and serve in an environment in which it is commonplace for your colleagues, superiors, and subordinates to say ‘fag,’ ‘faggot,’ ‘dyke,’ ‘queer,’ ‘die fag.’”[17]

Additionally, consider the psychological costs of having, as official military policy, the claim that homosexuality is incompatible with military service.  Osborn asks us to imagine, “…being told in an anti-gay harassment briefing that the first principle is that homosexual conduct is incompatible with military service.  That you are not worthy, that you are second class citizens.  Second-class status is not based on your abilities or merit, but because of who you are and what you say.”[18] We must ask ourselves, “What sort of recourse is open to homosexual soldiers who are victims of harassment?”  I fear the answers are few.  If a homosexual soldier hears abuse, or is the victim of abuse, the soldier must weigh the potential consequences of informing his or her commanding officer.  For example, he or she must consider the possibility of his or her commanding officer betraying his or her trust and turning an investigation into homosexual harassment into an investigation into whether or not that individual soldier is a homosexual.  If a sailor complains about the abuse, they expose themselves to risk of being separated from the armed forced under DADT.  If a soldier does not complain, then the harassment continues.  It is a lose-lose situation for the homosexual soldier.  Osborn concurs and writes the following with respect to the chilling murder of gay soldier Barry Winchell who “faced daily antigay harassment for four months:” “Policies that treat people as second class citizens suggest that you can treat them violently.  ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ does not create a band of brothers.  It creates, I submit, a band of thugs.”[19]

III

“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Is Inimical To Recruitment and Retention

In addition to the moral case against DADT is the claim that DADT is deleterious to military retention and recruitment, and hence, hurts the preparedness of our military.  First, let us discuss retention.  Let us begin with a story that I argue is illustrative of the harms posed by DADT.  Cathleen Glover,

“… learned Arabic at the Defense Language Institute (DLI), the military’s premier language school, in Monterey, Calif. Her timing as a soldier was fortuitous: Around her graduation last year, a Government Accounting Office study reported that the Army faced a critical shortage of linguists needed to translate intercepts and interrogate suspects in the war on terrorism… ‘I was what the country needed,’ Glover said.  She was, and she wasn’t. Glover is gay. She mastered Arabic but couldn’t handle living a double life under the military policy known as ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’ After two years in the Army, Glover, 26, voluntarily wrote a statement acknowledging her homosexuality… this is how former Spec. Glover came to be cleaning pools instead of sitting in the desert, translating Arabic for the U.S. government.”[20]

Cathleen Glover’s story is not a unique phenomenon.  Consider the alarmingly similar story of Lieutenant Dan Choi.  After an appearance on The Rachel Maddow Show, Lieutenant, Dan Choi, “a[n] [out homosexual] West Point graduate, Iraq war veteran, and Arab linguist,” recently “…received a letter formally kicking him out of the Army National Guard,” for violating the DADT policy and “negatively affected the good order and discipline of the New York Army National Guard.”[21] An emotional Choi said, “By saying three words to you today - ’I am gay’ – those three words are in violation of Title 10 of the U.S. code. It’s a code that is polluted by the people who want us to lie… it’s an immoral code that goes against every single thing that we were taught at West Point with our honor code… it’s more important to do the right thing.”[22] Finally, consider the similar story of Stephen Benjamin.  Benjamin writes in an article in The New York Times:

“I was an Arabic translator. After joining the Navy in 2003, I attended the Defense Language Institute, graduated in the top 10 percent of my class and then spent two years giving our troops the critical translation services they desperately needed. I was ready to serve in Iraq.  But I never got to. In March, I was ousted from the Navy under the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy, which mandates dismissal if a service member is found to be gay… The result was the termination of our careers, and the loss to the military of two more Arabic translators… My supervisors did not want to lose me. Most of my peers knew I was gay, and that didn’t bother them. I was always accepted as a member of the team.”[23]

These stories merely confirm what is intuitively obvious, that DADT hurts retention.  C. Dixon, Osburn, executive director at the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, concurs, writing:

“I would suggest to you that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, Don’t Pursue, Don’t Harass,” is also costing us leadership.  The current generation of young adults entering the military, our future leaders, sharply disagree with this policy.  And many are packing their bags and leaving the armed forces rather than staying in an organization that is out of touch with the American people.  The latest Gallup polls have found that more than 70 percent of Americans support gays in the military.”[24]

It must be conceded that the personal experiences of Glover, Choi, and Benjamin do seem to indicate that DADT does have a negative impact on retention, in this case, particularly of highly-skilled foreign language specialists.  It makes one wonder, along with our President Barack Obama just why it is that the United States government is wasting time and resources to persecute these troops when we so desperately need the skills and talents they bring to the battlefield.  Obama said in an interview during his candidacy for President,

“… I think there’s increasing recognition within the Armed Forces that this is a counterproductive strategy — ya know, we’re spending large sums of money to kick highly qualified gays or lesbians out of our military, some of whom possess specialties like Arab-language capabilities that we desperately need. That doesn’t make us more safe, and what I want are members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who are making decisions based on what strengthens our military and what is going to make us safer, not ideology.”[25]

It is important to acknowledge here Barack Obama’s reasons for questioning the efficacy of DADT; Obama gives us an excellent criterion, base decisions, “on what strengthens our military and makes us safer,” not adherence to some abstract ideology.

Turning briefly to the related matter of recruitment, on a personal note, as a twenty-five year-old male in reasonably good physical condition contemplating what to do with his life and considering military chaplaincy as a possible career path, the fact that the military discriminates against homosexual soldiers is a strong consideration against just such a career.  It seems to me that Osburn’s analysis is absolutely correct - that the military is facing a daunting challenge in attempting to entice an entire generation of young people that find the idea of discrimination based on sexual orientation morally reprehensible to join just such a discriminatory organization.

IV

The Unit Cohesion Counter-Argument

Proponents of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell generally base their support of this policy on the idea that integrating homosexuals into the military will “undermine unit cohesion.”  Aaron Belkin, the director of the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military at UCSB concurs, writing:

“What is the justification behind ‘Don’t-Ask, Don’t-Tell?’  One might guess that this policy has ten justifications or five or three.  But in fact, the official policy as articulated in congressional statue and Pentagon implementing regulations specifies only one official rationale for the ‘Don’t-Ask, Don’t-Tell’ policy.  And that rationale is called the ‘unit cohesion’ rationale.  The unit cohesion rationale is the idea that if gays and lesbians revealed their sexual orientation, then units no longer would be able to function.”[26]

The “homosexuality undermines unit cohesion” argument makes two main claims.  The first argument is simple enough to comprehend; proponents of DADT argue that it is unfair to force heterosexual soldiers to live in close quarters (shower, sleep, relax) with homosexual soldiers because it undermines the privacy rights of heterosexual soldiers.  The Flag & General Officers for the Military, one of the chief proponents of the DADT policy, argue, “H.R. 1283 would… be tantamount to ordering military women to live in close quarters with men. Stated in gender-neutral terms, the military would order persons to accept exposure to persons who may be sexually attracted to them.”[27] Allow me to provide a two choice illustrations of the fear under consideration.  Lieutenant Colonel Robert McGinnis, a staff member of the Family Research Council, explains the problem thusly:

“Cohesion is the glue that holds small units together. In ranger school we would wrap a poncho liner around us when we were cold. So you’re sharing body heat. If there is any perception of inappropriate behavior that you think might result from that, you have to have total trust that not only are they going to pull your wounded body off the battlefield but that they won’t do any thing untoward… [Sharing a poncho with a gay soldier] would make me uncomfortable.”[28]

Another essayist concurs and describes a nightmare scenario of a heterosexual soldier forced to undergo intense sexual harassment of a type I have never encountered.  He writes:

“Sir, I’ve got a problem… It’s my roommate. He’s Airman Thompson… Well, he’s gay, Sir. He told me so… Yes sir, but he keeps staring at me when I shower or change clothes and stuff. It’s really creeping me out… I’m sorry sir, but I can’t sleep at night. Now, every time I even reach for my zipper, Airman Thompson stares at me and gives me a “wolf-whistle.” I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m about ready to smack him.”[29]

The argument seems initially plausible - many of us can imagine the feelings of discomfort a heterosexual soldier would feel with being seen as a sex-object by his roommates.  I would submit that on the face of it, this rationale seems alarmingly similar to the rationale cited by many straight men and women who feel uncomfortable with same-sex roommates.

However, we ought to submit this argument to some scrutiny.  Consider the implications of this.  Professor Charles Moskos, states the view simply enough, “Nowhere in our society are the sexes forced to endure situations of undress in front of each other… If feelings of privacy for women are respected regading privacy from men, then we must respect those of straights with regard to gays.”[30] However, Belkin analyses the implications of this argument.  He writes, “the privacy rationale assumes that observation of same-sex nudity arouses sexual desire when the observer is homosexual and only when the observer is homosexual.”  If this assumption is incorrect, meaning that if it is the case that not only homosexuals, but also some heterosexuals experience arousal when confronted with same-sex nudity, then all of its implications must be called into question.  It would seem plausible, for example, to reject this conclusion based on the findings of Alfred Kinsey in his landmark works, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female.  Kinsey found that almost 46% of the male subjects had “reacted” sexually to persons of both sexes in their lives, and 37% had at least one homosexual experience.[31] These findings reveal that attraction is not unique to homosexuals; indeed, by that standard, then one must consider some 46% of American males to be “homosexual,” at least to the extent that they have experienced attraction to other males.

Additionally, Belkin notes that advocates of DADT argue that “…the homosexual gaze expresses sexual yearning and that heterosexuals do not want to be the objects of homosexuals’ sexual desire.  She [they] concludes that soldiers should not be ’stripped unwittingly of their right to choose to whom they reveal themselves in a sexual context.  Once this happens, the harm is done.  As a matter of law, the privacy violation does not depend on any acting out of sexual attraction toward others.  It is complete the moment privacy is breached.’  In other words, the injury takes place the moment that a homosexual sees the naked body of a heterosexual peer.”[32] However, one must wonder whether or not the homosexual gaze is inherently sexual as DADT proponents assume.  If it is not the case that every time a homosexual male views a male body, he is aroused, then there is very little reason to assume that the homosexual gaze is any different from the straight gaze.  Perhaps more importantly, at least from a policy efficacy standpoint, one must wonder just what DADT does to remedy this situation.  After all, since guaranteeing that there are no homosexuals in the military is a factual impossibility,[33] it seems to ultimately result in a choice for soldiers: who would you rather shower with, a closeted gay, or an open gay?  It is unclear to me how obscuring the sexual preferences of military personnel is going to protect the privacy rights of American soldiers.  Given that homosexual soldiers will inevitably get into the military, wanted or not, it would seem that it is preferable to all parties involved that homosexual soldiers who feel moved to do so, feel free to reveal their sexual preferences.

The second argument used in defence of the claim that DADT protects “unit cohesion” is that the inclusion of homosexuals in combat units introduces a variety of distractions and complications.  A commentator on the website, www.blackfive.net, recently linked to by notable gay conservative commentator Andrew Sullivan, writes,

“The reason for not allowing gays to serve openly in the military has nothing to do with rejecting tolerance or blind discrimination against homosexuals. It has everything to do with military effectiveness. The simple fact is that if you allow openly gay men to serve in combat units you will be opening the door to the sexualization of the battlefield. Openly gay men serving together in combat units will naturally result in romantic relationships between members of the same unit. It is not homophobic to recognize this fact since we have seen the same thing happen in garrison or rear area units with men and women… It goes without saying that this sort of thing would undermine both unit cohesion and discipline.”[34]

This argument is initially plausible, given that one can imagine that a fighting force like the United States Armed Forces must prioritize, above all else, performance.  And it is plausible, if not necessarily true, that romantic attractions prove a distraction from combat.  However, this argument conveniently forgets that there are already gay soldiers serving in the military.  One of the www.blackfive.net writers, a veteran of 14 years in US Army Special Forces writing under the moniker “Uncle Jimbo,” opines, “My view is that since there are currently a number of gay troops and little difficulty due to their presence, there is no need for the ban. We have effectively progressed beyond the point where most members of the military even care about sexual orientation in any way that would preclude them working side by side with gay people.”[35] He continues, “There have certainly been instances where tension caused by sexual relationships has degraded unit cohesion, but existing regulations already deal with this, and we need to ensure they are properly designed and enforced.”[36] This point here is essential; these sorts of inappropriate behaviour that are protested by proponents of the ban are already prohibited.  Denying military service based on the potentiality of a gay soldier or sailor breaking already extant regulations is absurd.  After all, straight soldiers and sailors already commit gross breaches of sexual ethics.  Does the mere potentiality of some of these breeches being homosexual in nature really offer a good reason to reject the service of gay Americans?  Jimbo concurs, “Yes, but regulations do prohibit this type of fraternization already. The experiences of extended mingling of the sexes during operations in Iraq has highlighted a need to evaluate and improve these rules and their enforcement. Adding gay troops to this while evaluating fraternization as a whole makes sense.”[37] Thus, it seems that the assertion that the service of openly gay soldiers would undermine unit cohesion remains unproven.  Advocates of the ban must ground their support of the policy in something more significant than the mere potentiality of a gay soldier or sailor breaking already extant regulations.

Perhaps the strongest evidence against the “unit cohesion” argument are the experiences of foreign militaries who have integrated gay and lesbian soldiers with “no problems whatsoever with discipline.”  Indeed, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and one of the original proponents of DADT, John M. Shalikashvili, in his Op-Ed entitled, “Second Thoughts on Gays in the Military,” writes:

“24 foreign nations, including Israel, Britain and other allies in the fight against terrorism, let gays serve openly, with none reporting morale or recruitment problems… I now believe that if gay men and lesbians served openly in the United States military, they would not undermine the efficacy of the armed forces. Our military has been stretched thin by our deployments in the Middle East, and we must welcome the service of any American who is willing and able to do the job.”[38]

Belkin, attempting to explain this phenomenon (the sheer ease of integration of out homosexual soldiers) writes:

“In 1985, the Defense Department in Canada did a survey of 6,500 soldiers. At the time, Canada prohibited known gays and lesbians from serving in the military. And of those 6,500 soldiers, 62% said they would not shower with a gay person, that they would not bunk with a gay person, and that they would not undress with a gay person. Now fast-forward to 1992. Canada lifted its gay ban. Now fast-forward to 1995, when the Canadian military did another survey and found no problems whatsoever with discipline. The Canadians found that the majority of soldiers were satisfied with the fact that gays could serve openly… Even though supporters of discrimination can point to surveys that show that heterosexual soldiers do not like gays and lesbians, this does not mean that known gays undermine unit cohesion.”[39]

Belkin’s point is sound here, “bigoted attitudes are not the same as bigoted behaviour.”  While vast numbers of soldiers professed bigoted beliefs, these beliefs did not result in disciplinary measures.  Belkin theorizes that such bigotry is more a matter of ignorance than true hate and would, “point to an entire literature that has been produced in the last fifteen years that shows that even when people dislike homosexuals, as soon as they have contact with an actual gay or lesbian person, in most cases the dislike goes away, and in all cases people are able to work together (Herek & Capitanio, 1996).”[40] Regardless of whether or not one accepts Belkin’s bold thesis that mere exposure to gays will diminish bigotry against them, the overwhelmingly successful integration of homosexuals into foreign militaries indicates the implausibility of the claim that allowing homosexuals into the military will “undermine unit cohesion.”

A common counter-argument to this line of reasoning is to suggest that the American military is simply too different from foreign forces for comparisons to be valid.  For example, the Flag & General Officers for the Military argue, “None of these [nations that allow gay service], however, have the institutional culture, let alone the worldwide responsibilities, that our military has.”[41] One could respond first by suggesting that the culture gap between the United States military and those of our allies are not as vast as originally thought.  For example, Captain Avner Even-Zohar writes, “Israel is a very successful example of lifting the ban and actually [is] very relevant to the United States.  First of all, the Israeli army… is very conservative.”[42] Thus, conservatives can no longer cite the US military’s “conservatism” as a key difference between the US military and foreign militaries.  Secondly, to conservatives that argue that the United States Armed Forces deploy more frequently than their allies, Captain Even-Zohar retorts that just as the United States deploys frequently, “…Israel does too… Since 1993, the Israeli army has not had a moment of complete peace with absolutely no fighting…  The relevance of the Israeli experience lies in the fact that the Israeli army is fighting as we speak and lifting the ban did not hurt it.”[43]

Bronwen Grey, director of the Defence Equity Organisation of the Australian Defence Force, takes the argument in a different direction:

The Australian Defence Force emphasizes an individual’s ability to do the job… We do not care about people’s sexual activity, as long as it is not unlawful or contrary to the inherent requirements of the job, which we define as not negatively impacting operational effectiveness.  And there is absolutely no reason why sexual orientation would [undermine operational effectiveness].[44]

This is a strong retort; it rejects the argument based on alleged differences between the US military and foreign militaries by asking “just what it is about sexual orientation that could undermine operational effectiveness?”  Furthermore, one must ask how valid the argument that foreign militaries’ experiences are irrelevant to the United States is given that the United States military trains extensively with foreign militaries for the explicit purpose of learning from the experiences of our foreign allies.  If our militaries are truly so culturally different that we cannot learn from their experiences, then why are we wasting time and resources training with them?

Finally, in a matter of mere pragmatism, we must briefly address the question of whether or not the military would have difficulty implementing this policy.  DADT proponents seem to rely heavily on the notion that the military would have difficulty ending its prejudicial treatment of homosexual soldiers.  However, this runs counter to the very image of our military portrayed by the architects of the DADT policy.  Charles Moskos, one of the original writers of DADT once wrote:

“The military establishment has means of coercion not readily available in most civilian pursuits.  Owing to the aptly titled ‘chain of command,’ failures in policy implementation can be pinpointed… Desegregation was facilitated by the pervasiveness in the military of a bureaucratic ethos, with its concomitant formality and high social distance… whatever the internal policy decided upon, racial integration being a paramount but only one example, the military establishment is uniquely suited to realize its implementation.”[45]

This is truly an interesting quotation.  It is an admission, flat out, that justifications for the policy that rely on the difficult of implementing this policy (or in this case, “undermining unit cohesion”) are flatly untrue.  It suggests that regardless of the content of the policy, “the military establishment is uniquely suited to realize its implementation.”  It helps that the example in question is racial bigotry, a particularly vicious and long-lived form of hatred.  It is wildly ridiculous to argue that while the military was capable of integrating the races, integrating homosexuals and heterosexuals is beyond their capacity.

In summation, it is clear to me that the claim that the service of our homosexuals would “undermine unit cohension,” seems clearly false.  First, in the case of privacy, it is unclear how DADT promotes the privacy of heterosexuals.  Given that our soldiers already shower with homosexuals and that DADT does nothing to protect heterosexuals from alleged discomfort with closeted homosexuals, only open gays, one must ask just how it is that privacy rights are promoted.  Second, with respect to the argument that the inclusion of homosexuals in combat units introduces a variety of distractions and complications, we found that this is at heart, an empty argument, since the behaviours pointed out as “inappropriate” are already condemned by military policy.  It would be ridiculous to deny homosexuals the right to serve on the grounds that they might break rules.  Using that logic, we could then bar homosexuals from open service in the military on the grounds that homosexuals might commit murder, or steal cable, or break any other law.  Third, the experiences of our allies have clearly indicated that integration of open homosexuals into the military poses no threats to unit cohesion.  Finally, however, it is Belkin who finally nails the coffin shut.  He writes:

“Recall that according to the unit cohesion rationale, known gays make it impossible for their units to survive in combat… So let us just say conservatively that 10% or 3,000 people in the military are known by their peers to be gay. According to the Pentagon’s own logic, each one of these 3,000 soldiers undermines his or her unit’s ability to survive. If the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff believed the unit cohesion rationale, he would kick these 3,000 known gays and lesbians out of the military during wartime to prevent them from destroying their units. When wars occur, however, the Pentagon retains gay and lesbian soldiers. Do military leaders actually expect us to believe that they are willing to permit 3,000 soldiers to destroy their units in order to prevent straight soldiers from pretending to be homosexual? Clearly, even the Pentagon knows that the unit cohesion rationale is not true… the architects of this policy (DADT) should have the integrity to admit that ‘Don’t-Ask, Don’t-Tell’ is not based on data.  It is not based on military necessity.”[46]

Belkin is absolutely right on this point.  If it is the case that the Pentagon truly does base its adherence to DADT on the grounds that gays undermine unit cohesion and hence, pose a grave threat to the lives of them and their fellow soldiers, why do they let so many out homosexual soldiers serve?  Timothy Haggerty, a research associate who worked on the RAND study, Sexual Orientation and U.S. Military Personnel Policy: Opinions and Assessment and associate director of the Center for the Arts in Society at Carnegie Mellon sums it up nicely: “[the question] ‘Is the gay ban based on military necessity?’ - is a question that, as a historian, I can answer rather simply: ‘no.’”[47]

V

Concluding Remarks

As we take a step back to consider the United States’ government’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, it would be wise to briefly revue the costs and benefits of the policy.  The moral costs of the policy have been established in this essay.  DADT is morally wrong because it discriminates against homosexual soldiers and because it inflicts intense psychological abuse upon homosexual soldiers.  In addition to its high moral cost, DADT costs our military the service of nearly a thousand men and women each year, unacceptable given our current recruitment woes.  Since 1994, our military has separated 12,500 homosexual soldiers from the armed forces.[48] In addition to soldiers with valuable skill sets, DADT undermines our recruitment efforts.  The current generation of young Americans approves of homosexuality in greater numbers than previous generations.  The bigoted DADT policy undermines our efforts to recruit this next generation of soldiers.  Finally, I argue that the claim that eliminating DADT would “undermine unit cohesion” is a fiction on the grounds that foreign governments have integrated with no ill-effects.  As citizens of a representative democracy, we are in some sense responsible for the actions of our government.  I argue that our responsibility to honour the concepts of human dignity and human decency enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights require us, as humans, to end this bigoted policy.

---

[1] http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/10/654.html#b (accessed May 6, 2009).

[2] http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/10/654.html#b (my italics) (accessed May 9, 2009).

[3] Frank, Nathaniel. Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2009 xix.

[4] Frank xvii (my italics).

[5] Frank xvii.

[6] Frank xix.

[7] Frank 18.  It is important to note that Steffan was separated from the armed forces prior to the creation of the DADT policy.  I believe that this example is nevertheless relevant since Steffan would have been separated from the military under the DADT policy since he had verbally admitted to being a homosexual.

[8] Frank xviii.

[9] Belkin 109.

[10] Belkin 29.

[11] Frank xvii.

[12] Frank xvii.

[13] Belkin 143.

[14] Belkin 141.

[15] Belkin 141

[16] Belkin 142.

[17] Belkin 143.

[18] Belkin 143.

[19] Belkin 144.

[20] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29683-2003Dec2.html (accessed May 9, 2009).

[21] http://www2.advocate.com/news_detail_ektid82964.asp (accessed May 9, 2009).

[22] http://www2.advocate.com/news_detail_ektid82964.asp (my italics). (accessed May 9, 2009).

[23] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/08/opinion/08benjamin.html?_r=1 (accessed May 9, 2009).

[24] Belkin, Aaron and Bateman, Geoffrey eds.  Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell: Debating the Gay Ban in the Military. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2003, p144 (my italics).

[25] http://www.advocate.com/exclusive_detail_ektid53285.asp?page=2 (accessed May 9, 2009).

[26] http://www.palmcenter.org/files/active/0/J%20Homosexuality%20galleys.pdf (accessed May 9, 2009).

[27] http://flagandgeneralofficersforthemilitary.com/FGOM%20Issue%20Overview%20033109.pdf (accessed May 9, 2009).

[28] http://www.palmcenter.org/files/active/0/J%20Homosexuality%20galleys.pdf (accessed May 9, 2009).

[29] http://usmilitary.about.com/library/weekly/aa011000a.htm (accessed May 9, 2009).

[30] Belkin 51.

[31] Kinsey;, Alfred C., and Clyde E. Martin Ward. Sexual Behavior In the Human Male. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company, 1948, p656.

[32] Belkin 53.

[33] Logically, we cannot “know” if a person is gay since we cannot read minds.  All we can do is observe behaviour and determine whether or not the person expresses the behaviour of a homosexual.  A consequence of this fact is that we can never claim evidence for a person’s heterosexuality, only evidence that he has not acted on homosexual drives.  Furthermore, according to professor Melissa Embser-Herbert, based on data collected in the early 1990’s, “Seventy-nine percent of the women responded ‘yes.’  That is, of those who identified as heterosexual at some point in their career, eight out of ten said that they know military women who were recognized as lesbian or bisexual… And if you just look at naval enlisted personnel, 39 percent said ‘yes’” (Belkin 55).  Thus, both the claim that that the military has succeeded in screening-out gays, and that it is even possible to screen out gays, seem implausible.

[34] http://www.blackfive.net/main/2005/11/why_cant_gays_s.html (accessed May 9, 2009).

[35] http://www.blackfive.net/main/2005/11/lively_discussi.html#comments (accessed May 9, 2009).

[36] http://www.blackfive.net/main/2005/11/lively_discussi.html#comments (accessed May 9, 2009).

[37] http://www.blackfive.net/main/2005/11/lively_discussi.html#comments (accessed May 9, 2009).

[38] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/02/opinion/02shalikashvili.html (accessed May 9, 2009).

[39] http://www.palmcenter.org/files/active/0/J%20Homosexuality%20galleys.pdf     (accessed May 9, 2009).

[40] http://www.palmcenter.org/files/active/0/J%20Homosexuality%20galleys.pdf     (my italics) (accessed May 9, 2009).

[41] http://flagandgeneralofficersforthemilitary.com/FGOM%20Issue%20Overview%20033109.pdf

[42] Belkin 112.

[43] Belkin 112 (my italics).

[44] Belkin 107

[45] Frank 26.

[46] http://www.palmcenter.org/files/active/0/J%20Homosexuality%20galleys.pdf

[47] Belkin 10.

[48] http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=60043.

Jonathan P. Figdor
(please excuse any errors converting the .doc to .html)

I just read that FISA, the gutting of the 4th Amendment to that relic we call the Bill of Rights, passed the Senate, which holds a fantastic 9% approval rating with the American people.

To this news I must make the following comments:

If I had a 9% rating at work, I would be fired. So should you, Congress.

If you, Congress, think you can pull this off, you are wrong. I hereby commit to vote out ALL federal incumbents.

And lastly, I must say, you MOTHERFUCKERS! How dare you destroy this country, whose Constitution you have all, each and every one of you, sworn to uphold!

I see a nomination for Loser of the Year here…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3QmJNZMBeg

This is billed as the most important video on the net.  See for yourself.  The text follows:

This is the most important video on the internet 

…but only… 

… if you choose to participate and if you forward this video and create your own. 

“Two thousand years ago, a Roman Senator suggested that all slaves wear white armbands to better identify them.” 

“No,” said a wiser Senator.  “If they see how many of them there are, they may revolt.” 

Today, you and I and all Americans are the slaves. 

Let us see how many are ready to revolt. 

Now, let us hear from those who support our cause. 

Exodus 20:15  Thou shalt not steal.  

      …Yahweh (the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.) 

“Steal” to take the property of another wrongfully and especially as a habitual or regular practice. 

  - Webster’s Dictionary 

The IRS steals from Americans to profit private bankers… 

100% of the money collected by the IRS goes to pay interest to banks. 

For money that they never loaned, a non-existent debt. 

“It is well that the people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.” 

- Henry Ford 

“We have in this country, one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known.  I refer to the Federal Reserve Board.  This evil institution has impoverished the people of the United States… and has practically bankrupted our government.  It has done this through the corrupt practices of the moneyed vultures who control it.” 

•  
  • Congressman Louis T. McFadden

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.  Already they have raised up a moneyed aristocracy that has set the government at defiance.  The issuing power (of money) should be taken away from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs.” 

•  
  • Thomas Jefferson, U.S. President

“History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and its issuance.” 

•  
  • James Madison

“Most Americans have no real understanding of the operation of the international money lenders.  The accounts of the Federal Reserve System have never been audited.  It operates outside the control of Congress and manipulates the credit of the United States.” 

      - Sen. Barry Goldwater (Rep. AR) 

If, as it appears, the experiment that was called “America” is at an end…then perhaps a fitting epitaph would be… 

“here lies America, the greatest nation that might have been had it not been for the Edomite bankers who first stole their money, used their stolen money to buy their politicians and press and lastly deprived them of their constitutional freedom by the most evil device yet created – The Federal Reserve Banking System” 

•  
  • G.D. McDaniel

What we propose is… 

A one day, national (international) strike, to make everyone aware of the numbers of people who are aware of this deceit. 

The Strike to Abolish The Federal Reserve. 

To be held on Tax Day (theft day USA) April, 15, 2008 

WHEREAS:  The Federal Reserve is an illegal corporation that operates for profit and is NOT part of the federal government of the United States of America. 

WHEREAS:  The Federal Reserve has stolen Trillions of Dollars from the citizens of the United States, without even having the Constitutional authority to exist. 

WHEREAS:  The New World Order could not continue its march to destroy America and its freedoms without the help of the Federal Reserve stockholders. 

WHEREAS:  We can never have honest politicians as long as corrupt money from this corrupt organization keeps dishonest politicians in power. 

…We the People, that favor abolishing the Federal Reserve and the income tax will be on strike or calling in sick in protest on April 15, 2008. 

Let’s end the income tax and Federal Reserve forever.  Let’s demand that the stockolders of the Federal Reserve return all that they have stolen by deceit.  They are common thieves and all that they own is owed to Americans as restitution. 

April 15^th, 2008       …the beginning of the end… 

… of the enslavement of 300 million Americans 

…and the enslavement of the world. 

The Canadians, English, Germans and French are all planning to join this strike. 

People need to create different versions of this video so that it can’t be stopped. 

Other suggestions have been made also… 

Don’t buy anything on the day of protest… 

Wear white wristbands or armbands to show your support… 

Remove most or all of your money from the bank for a couple of days around the strike… 

Save, Re-create, Re-post this video 

The 10 Primary Stockholders in the Federal Reserve System are:

1. The Rothschilds – London
2. The Rothschilds – Berlin
3. The Lazard Brothers – Paris
4. Israel Seiff – Italy
5. Kuhn-Loeb Company – Germany
6. The Warburgs – Amsterdam
7. The Warburgs – Hamburg
8. Lehman Brothers – NY
9. Goldman & Sachs – NY
10. The Rockefellers – NY

send this video to your family and friends… 

it will take millions of educated participants to create change…but change is coming

Can anyone fill me in on the current events of OJ Simpson?

I can’t believe I hadn’t heard anything about the robbery and Kidnapping charges until yesterday, even though it happened in Sept.

I haven’t looked too hard, but I haven’t been able to find much good news on it.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2007/11/09/2003386960

You couldn’t make this crap up, what the hell is OJ going to do next?

I mean no disrespect to mentally retarded people other than this one.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about hit up Yahoo and search for “Michael Vick”.

According to USA Today Vick made $8,401,980 in 2006 and $23,102,750 in 2005 playing quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons.

I’m getting close to the reason I say he’s retarded.

Dog Fighting is an illegal activity that anyone could figure would piss off a lot of people. Being involved in something like that could certainly screw up that nice contract he has with the Falcons, and all the money that he gets for endorsing Nike and other products. Why would you want to fuck that up? Retarded…

Assuming Vick is found guilty, what do you suppose he’d get for a sentence or fine? Will he play in the NFL again? Some people have some good ideas. I think a texas tornado twister match to the death between Mike Vick, Ron Artest and Barry Bonds could make some good money if it was advertised and sold as a pay-per-view.

What are your ideas? Or do you the type of guy that would wet your panties with joy at the idea of watching animals rip each other apart?