Part 2 of 2

May 2010 – Gay activists demand it, President Obama has promised it, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has said it should be done.

They’re talking about lifting the ban on gays and lesbians serving in the U.S. military, a ban supposedly held in place by a policy called “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT). While federal law forbids homosexuals from serving in the military, in 1993 President Bill Clinton instituted DADT. That policy directed the military not to inquire if someone was gay when he or she was enlisting, and allowed homosexuals to serve as long as they didn’t reveal their sexual orientation. Any gays or lesbians crossing that line later could be discharged. (See AFA Journal, 4/10.)

However, many people believe that taking the unprecedented step of repealing the ban itself would make the military less effective and cause many people who object to homosexuality either not to enlist or, if they already serve, to decide against reenlistment.

Is repealing the ban a good idea? Here are three reasons to just say no.

No consensus to move forward
Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee in February, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, “[I]t is my personal belief that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would be the right thing to do. No matter how I look at this issue, I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens.”

But Mullen doesn’t speak for everyone. Later that month, Gen. James Conway, Commandant of the Marine Corps, told that same committee that he disagreed with attempts to repeal the ban. “My best military advice to this committee, to the [defense] secretary, and to the president would be to keep the law such as it is.”

So which view prevails among the military brass? No one really knows. In fact, both Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr. and Air Force Gen. Norton A. Schwartz urged caution in making policy changes.

“I do have serious concerns about the impact of repeal of the law on a force that is fully engaged in two wars and has been at war for eight and a half years,” Casey said. “We just don’t know the impacts on readiness and military effectiveness.”

Even Mullen admitted that there are a lot of unknowns in going forward. He told the committee, “That there will be some disruption in the force I cannot deny. That there will be legal, social, and perhaps even infrastructure changes to be made certainly seems plausible.”

He added one day later, “There is very little objective data on this. It is filled, as you know, with emotion and strongly held opinions and beliefs.”

In keeping with Obama’s statement that the ban would be lifted, the Department of Defense has promised to study the issue, and Mullen told the committee that he was in favor of such a review.

But then why not wait until the report comes back? Why is Mullen in favor of a policy when there is so much we don’t know about the consequences of that policy? It appears the admiral is saying that, sure, we don’t know the impact of lifting the ban, so we’re going to do it anyway.

It seems the admiral is all too willing to conduct an ill-conceived experiment on the best military in the world.

That rubs critics the wrong way. Writer Larry Thornberry said in the American Spectator, “To the usual suspects on the cultural left, the military is just a huge, expensive ball of clay to be molded to their liking.”

Not one to mince words, former Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North said the plan would treat members of the military “like lab rats in Mr. Obama’s radical social experiment.”

Unit cohesion will suffer
Many civilians have no idea of the nature of military life, which requires service members to live in close proximity for long periods of time. That closeness is meant to bond military units into a cohesive and effective force that can accomplish its primary tasks – defend the U.S. Constitution, the nation and its interests.

However, those who have served understand the forced intimacy of military life quite well.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), a former Navy pilot and POW during the Vietnam War, serves as a member on the Senate Armed Services Committee. McCain told the committee that “the military’s mission to prepare for and conduct combat operations requires service men and women to accept living and working conditions that are often spartan and characterized by forced intimacy with little or no privacy.”

How would straight men react to being in close quarters or in the showers with homosexuals? Common sense suggests it would be problematic.

In 2008, Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, defended the ban before a House subcommittee, arguing that “the real world issue here is not superficial,” nor simply fodder for a television sitcom.

“We are talking about human sexuality and the normal, human desire for personal privacy and modesty in sexual matters,” she said.

The general public, which, by wide margins in most polls, supports lifting the ban, also seems to understand this problem. For example, in a Quinnipiac University poll in February, 66% called the current policy of DADT discriminatory against homosexuals; but those same poll respondents, according to a university press release, “split 45-46% on whether heterosexual personnel should be required to share quarters with gay personnel.”

That contradiction presents an insurmountable logistical problem: Homosexuals should be allowed to serve openly, but heterosexuals shouldn’t be forced to live with them. Just how would that work?

Even those who advocate lifting the ban understand the potential problems. In an article last year for Joint Force Quarterly, for example, Air Force Col. Om Prakash compared the gay-straight issue with the military’s approach when women were admitted in large numbers to the military.

“In the case of integration of the sexes, the U.S. military found lack of sexual privacy, as well as sex between males and females, undermined order, discipline and morale,” he said. “These concerns were solved by segregated living quarters. Here the issue becomes complicated. Those opposed to lifting the ban point out that the living conditions of the military would at times make it impossible to guarantee privacy throughout the spectrum of sexual orientation.”

Despite this admission, however, Prakash believes such difficulties could be overcome. Critics are doubtful.

“The last thing straight service members need is the sexual tension caused by having gays and lesbians showering and sleeping just feet away from them,” Thornberry said. “When I was an enlisted destroyer sailor … I had the comfort of knowing that anyone in the open showers I had to share with my shipmates was only there for the purpose of getting clean. If we’re going to throw gay and straight servicemen into the same open showers together, we may as well go the rest of the way and throw servicemen and women in together. What’s the difference? Or are we going to have new combinations and permutations of facilities – his, hers, theirs, and [every other] niche?”

According to critics of the effort to lift the ban, the obvious outcome of this strain on personnel is that the military will cease to function as efficiently.

Recruitment, retention rates will suffer
Perhaps just as critically, the military will neither attract nor keep the many quality people it needs. After all, the U.S. military is a volunteer force.

Frank J. Gaffney Jr., president of the Center for Security Policy, said, “There are simply no practical answers to the myriad problems associated with integrating people with these many avowed sexual proclivities into military settings of forced intimacy. The net result of trying is that it is likely to force vastly more people to leave the services than will be induced to join them.”

In the face of this likelihood, Gaffney characterized the effort to lift the ban as “madness in time of war.”

Ending the ban would be particularly troubling for Christians and other religious adherents who believe homosexuality is immoral. Even Prakash admitted that the debate over gays in the military is “an issue deeply tied to social mores, religion, and personal values.” Why is it hard to imagine that many Christians would be among the first to leave?

In fact, it’s probable that the military would take a hard line against Christians who did not want to serve with open homosexuals. “Tough,” would be the likely official response. “The military decides and you obey or get out – even if your reasons are religious.”

Many will no doubt do just that.

North even foresees problems for clergy serving in the armed forces. “Will the military have to acknowledge same-sex marriages [performed in states where it is legal]?” he asked. “If so, will military chaplains be required to perform such rituals” in the armed services?

Even more of a threat to religious freedom: A change in military policy would no doubt demand a shift to the forced embrace of homosexuality and the suppression of dissent.

When Adm. Mullen told the world that he supported gays in the military, everyone down the chain of command heard the statement, too.

University of Maryland military sociologist David Segal told AOL News that such words would have an enormous impact on service members who take their careers seriously. “When more junior officers hear people with stars saying, ‘This is the way we should be going,’ they fall in line,” Segal said.

And if they don’t like the policy change, then what? They either leave or, in the case of those considering the military as a career, they simply decide not to enlist in the first place.

This places the entire theoretical issue squarely in the harsh glare of reality.

Perhaps now is not the right time to add the culture wars to the military’s burdens.