I waited for a while to address my friend David Horowitz’s recent article on gays in the military in Salon. I didn’t want to obsess about a subject I was already writing a lot about. But I don’t want to seem to be ducking a debate either. So here goes. David makes one vital and good point. Not all opposition to openly gay men and women serving in the military is fueled by sheer prejudice. I hope I didn’t write anything to suggest otherwise. What David homes in on is the central, non-prejudicial argument presented in 1993: that openly gay soldiers would weaken unit cohesion and so harm military preparedness. I agree that this issue of preparedness – and not civilian standards of fairness – is the central concern for a military fighting wars. But I also believe, as I think David does, that if both fairness and competence can be achieved, so much the better for a democratic society’s military. The reason I disagree with David is that I simply don’t buy the unit cohesion argument. Its most eloquent supporter back in 1993, military analyst Charlie Moskos, has subsequently changed his mind, after studying the matter more closely in militaries abroad. So has Lawrence Korb, former Reagan official. The recent experience in the British and Australian militaries, who have now ended their own gay bans, helped bring Moskos and Korb around. The few fighting units in both countries with openly gay personnel have had nothing but minor problems. Even the staunchly Tory Daily Telegraph recently conceded that the end of the ban had been a non-event for all concerned in Britain. Why? Because most gay servicemembers are not radical activists. They’re among the most conservative homosexuals around. In almost every case, even when allowed to be open, they choose to keep their sexual orientation private on duty and at work. The number of openly gay soldiers in Canada and Britain have amounted to a few dozen at most since the ban ended – and, because many already have the respect of their peers, they have been free from abuse or disruption. The real, practical effect of an end to the ban would therefore, I’d wager, not be an influx of gay soldiers (there are plenty in uniform right now and always have been) but simply an end to the intolerable stress imposed upon gay soldiers who fear at every moment that they can be busted, harassed or, in extreme cases, assaulted with little response from the top brass. It would also remove the loophole I wrote about whereby straight guys get an easy out by simply saying they’re gay.
DROPPING THE SOAP: What about the showers issue? Again, it’s largely a non-event. The difference between a post-ban military and now would not be gay soldiers being in the showers rather than not in the showers. They’re in the showers now. In fact, every communal shower straight men have ever been in has had a gay guy somewhere – from football practice to the gym. The difference is that this would have to be acknowledged in a handful of cases in a post-ban military. Sure, there may be some awkward moments, but I can’t believe that this small issue is really going to cripple military effectiveness. If anything, those openly gay men in the showers and bunks may well be forced to adopt even stricter forms of self-effacement than before. Above all, they will be given an opportunity to disprove all the hysterical stereotypes about gay men – that they’re sexual predators, that they find even all straight guys indiscriminately attractive (don’t kid yourselves), that they can’t keep their pants on, and so on. Strict rules about fraternization should be enforced and anyone found disobeying them should be thrown out. Isn’t this approach – giving people a chance to prove themselves, regardless of identity – part of what conservatism should now be about? Since when should conservatives assume certain behavior of people just because they belong to a particular ethnic, sexual or religious group? I thought that was what the left is now all about.
TWO OTHER THINGS: I think David is off-base with his analogy to racial integration. The military integrated in 1948 under extreme duress. The impact on unit cohesion was far deeper than any openly gay presence would be, because racism was far more entrenched then than now, because there are many more blacks than gays, and because, unlike gays, blacks couldn’t hide. Truman believed that ending this discrimination was worthwhile even if it temporarily disrupted the military’s preparedness at the height of the Cold War. Are we really saying that in a time of peace, we cannot afford even a tiny risk of the same thing? And the women-in-combat analogy is also inapt. The British and Israeli experience suggests that integrating women is far more disruptive than integrating gay men – because women are not physically or psychologically the same as men, and because women had never been in such positions before. The difference with gay men is that they’ve been in the military for ever, and they’re men, goddammit. In fact, I think one of the deepest reasons for resistance to the notion of gay soldiers is that their very presence debunks the effeminacy that many (including the p.c. left and far-right) want to foist onto most homosexuals. It’s not true; it has never been true; and it deserves debunking. David, here’s another anti-p.c. crusade we could both endorse. Why not come join me?
The Dish 