Against the "Cohesion" Pretext
By Good for Alan Simpson, who notes the empirical difficulties with the idea that if we don’t indulge the ex ante bigotry of some military and political leaders it will somehow cause morale and cohesion to collapse:
Military attitudes have also shifted. Fully three-quarters of 500 vets returning from Iraq and Afghanistan said in a December Zogby poll that they were comfortable interacting with gay people. Also last year, a Zogby poll showed that a majority of service members who knew a gay member in their unit said the person’s presence had no negative impact on the unit or personal morale. Senior leaders such as retired Gen. John Shalikashvili and Lt. Gen. Daniel Christman, a former West Point superintendent, are calling for a second look.
Second, 24 nations, including 12 in Operation Enduring Freedom and nine in Operation Iraqi Freedom, permit open service. Despite controversy surrounding the policy change, it has had no negative impact on morale, cohesion, readiness or recruitment. Our allies did not display such acceptance back when we voted on “don’t ask, don’t tell,” but we should consider their common-sense example.
Third, there are not enough troops to perform the required mission. The Army is “about broken,” in the words of Colin Powell. The Army’s chief of staff, Gen. Peter Schoomaker, told the House Armed Services Committee in December that “the active-duty Army of 507,000 will break unless the force is expanded by 7,000 more soldiers a year.” To fill its needs, the Army is granting a record number of “moral waivers,” allowing even felons to enlist. Yet we turn away patriotic gay and lesbian citizens.
So plenty of countries (and Simpson’s list presumably doesn’t include Israel, which of course has somehow maintained a superb military while maintaining both gender and gay and lesbian integration) have openly gay people serving and this has no discernible effects whatsoever and increases the potential pool of talented recruits, and yet some people claim that American soldiers are too immature and hateful and American military leadership too incompetent for gay people to openly serve in our military they way they do in many of our allies. Why do anti-gay bigots hate America?