I’m grateful to Aaron Goldstein for sharing his thoughts
about my recent
exchange with John
Tabin concerning “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” If nothing else, this
helps to clarify and elucidate the lines of debate.
This is important, because even with the Senate’s deeply
disappointing
vote on Saturday, issues surrounding “gay rights” are going to
be with us, both within and outside the military, for a long time.
So clarity of thought and clarity of understanding are
required.
But with respect, it doesn’t look like Goldstein has read what
I’ve written very closely. My argument is not “predicated
on the assumption that because someone is gay… he or she is
automatically attracted to every single member of the same
sex.”
That’s a ludicrous caricature of what I’ve written. Of course no
one agrees with that.
Obviously, as James Antle has observed here
at The American Spectator, not every gay person
serving in uniform is going to make sexual advances toward a fellow
service member. But so what? It’s equally true that not every
taxpayer is going to go out and start a new business when you cut
marginal tax rates. But again: so what?
The point is that some people will do both of these
things. Some people will respond to the incentives and new
opportunities that policymakers have created. And, in both cases —
openly gay service and cutting marginal tax rates — this can and
surely will have dramatic effects.
Indeed, some taxpayers will start up new businesses; and some
gay military personnel will fraternize and carry on affairs. The
former is a good thing, of course; the latter a very bad and
dangerous thing because it can wreak havoc with a unit’s military
effectiveness and mission accomplishment.
But what’s most frustrating about Goldstein’s post is that
blames U.S. military personnel for any problems that might result
from openly gay service. The problem, you see, is them, those
who “have reservations about homosexuality”!
Why, some of our servicemen and women are “uncomfortable with
those who are openly gay,” Goldstein writes. And this “says more
about the character of uncomfortable military personnel than it
does about the soldier who is openly gay.
The only reason a soldier would be uncomfortable serving with a
soldier who is gay is the fear of the gay soldier making unwanted
advances towards him or her. Again, we have an underlying
assumption that the gay soldier is automatically attracted to every
single member of the same sex.
With respect to Goldstein, his comments here say more about the
modern-day liberal prejudices that he harbors than they do about
the issue at hand.
And if Goldstein’s attitude is indicative of how the military
will treat traditionalists and religious believers who harbor
sincere and good-faith objections to homosexuality — with casual
scorn and mild contempt — then our military personnel are headed
for much worse trouble than any of us might realize.
As I’ve written repeatedly here at The American
Spectator, the feelings of U.S. military personnel are not at
issue in this debate. Feelings are fleeting and ephemeral; they can
and do change over time.
What is at issue is the introduction of an overt sexual
dynamic — backed up by the full power of the state, the full force
of law — into small-scale military units. And that sexual dynamic
is inherently disruptive and detrimental to military effectiveness,
mission success, unit cohesion, and good order and discipline
within the ranks.
And please don’t talk to me about me about military rules
proscribing sexual fraternization. Those rules are willfully
flouted today, and everyone up and down the chain of command
knows it. It is simply impossible to police sexual conduct in a
predominantly young and healthy coed population, most of which is
barely out of high school.
Goldstein’s argument, then, isn’t with any military service
member’s “feelings” about lesbians and homosexuals; his argument is
with human nature.
And again, a gay soldier needn’t be attracted to “every single
member of the same sex” to cause a problem. A gay soldier need only
be attracted to one solider in one unit to cause one serious
problem.
So there is no “assumption that rests on a foundation of
arrogance, conceit, fear and irrationality.” That is, if I may say
so, classic liberal prejudice and projection. There is, instead, an
assumption that is grounded in human nature and group dynamics —
an assumption that Goldstein is ignoring.
Finally, the military obviously does not value “sexual
orientation over competence and character.” That’s why — again, as
I’ve observed here at the American Spectator many times —
military commanders are “loath to initiate separation procedures
against a gay service member unless and until that service member
makes an issue of his sexuality.”
In fact, gay soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines serve now,
with honor, and without incident or disruption: because under DADT,
commanders don’t ask, and service members don’t tell.
So what’s the problem?! Why change or alter a manifestly
successful policy?
Because, again, as I’ve observed before here at The
American Spectator,
…the point of repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” isn’t to allow
gays to serve. [They can and do serve now, after all. Instead], it
is to enforce public acceptance of homosexuality.
It is to supplant the Judeo-Christian tradition with a more
modern, secular humanist tradition. It is to put homosexuality on a
par, legally and socially, with heterosexuality. It is to infringe
upon religious liberty. And it is to replace our traditional
understanding of manhood and masculinity with a more sexually
ambiguous sense of these terms…
Indeed, that’s the more nefarious and underhanded purpose of
repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” which the media never report on
or discuss.
That’s why repeal of DADT is only the first of many skirmishes
sure to come in the ongoing culture war over “gay rights.”
There is, of course, the Left’s attempt to redefine marriage
such that it becomes meaningless. And then there’s the Left’s
effort to deny religious liberty whenever it conflicts (as it must)
with “gay rights.”
The Boy Scouts currently have a constitutional right to keep out
openly gay scout masters; but it is only a matter of time, I
suppose, before the courts find that right, too, to be passé and
superseded by the new morality.
The military used to be safely protected from these social and
legal struggles, but not anymore. Now, thanks to Congress’s rash
and precipitous action, we can expect the same social and legal
fights that have occurred in the civilian
world to take place within the military. Welcome to the Brave
New World.
