Don't Ask, Don't Tell

Recently, the incoming White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said on a You Tube video in response to an e-mail that the new Obama Administration was going to definitively get rid of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy and allow homosexuals to openly serve in the military. I am a little interested in how that is going to work. There are a lot of issues that would have to be resolved but we can look at it from one limited set of difficulties. By the way, I don’t use the word gay to describe homosexuals as it implies that anyone who is not homosexual is not happy.

In a U. S. military shore billet, open sexual preferences likely won’t make any difference to people who live off base because they live separately and commute to work like anyone else. That is the perspective of almost all the civilian people arguing for the change. For people who live in military housing or are deployed, it is a huge difference. By definition, people in the military who are deployed in tents or ships or live in barracks serve in very close quarters. Many years ago, I had a discussion with former Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina about this same subject. He brought up the point of hygiene facilities. He wondered if we were going to have a single set of showers for everyone. The movie Starship Troopers showed a facility like that. Maybe that is where we are heading someday. The point being that if you are going to have to shower with someone who might look at you as a potential sexual partner, you might as well have the heterosexuals do the same. Why should homosexuals have the advantage of showering and using the same rest room facilities as the other same sex unit members when the heterosexuals are segregated? There is a lot of discussion in the military about unit cohesion. Does it enhance or hurt unit cohesion to have members feel uncomfortable when using hygiene facilities? It isn’t a homophobia issue; it is a privacy and comfort issue. The homosexual advocates will say that it is homophobic and portrays an inaccurate stereotype that all homosexuals are predatory in nature and that to think every time someone looks at you, they are thinking of you as a sexual partner. I agree that the stereotype is inaccurate. All heterosexuals don’t lust after all people of the opposite sex, either. Therefore, per the homosexual advocates, heterosexuals shouldn’t have to worry about homosexuals using the same facilities. Given that same logic, heterosexual men and women should not be segregated in the showers, if it is not required for the homosexuals. If it is not a problem for openly homosexual men or women to use same sex facilities with heterosexuals, it is women and men will have to get used to the idea of using the same facilities, using the same logic.

So, we have a paradox: If it is okay for openly homosexual members to use the same facilities, it should be okay for openly heterosexual men and women to use the same facilities. If you don’t agree with that logic, then one possibility is the four facility solution: 1) heterosexual males, 2) homosexual males, 3) heterosexual females, and) homosexual females. It is going to cost a lot of money to retrofit ships and barracks to those standards. Will the homosexual male facilities become the gay bath houses of the nineteen seventies? No, clearly that solution won’t work because it still puts potential sexual partners in compromising positions. Therefore, we have to go to the same two facility system we have now except the homosexual men will use the current women’s facilities with the heterosexual women and the homosexual women will use the ones with the heterosexual men. In order to keep heterosexual men from sneaking in with the women and the other permutations, all people will have to register their sexual preference when joining a unit so they can be classified to the correct hygiene facilities. Or should it just be added to your identification card like a religious preference? Should you wear some identifying badge? Germany did that in the 1930s and it didn't turn out very well. Is anyone beginning to see a problem?

Will homosexuals in relationships have to be segregated in berthing? Clearly, we can’t have people with an ongoing sexual relationship sharing the same berthing spaces with dozens of other members. Does that mean the Senior Enlisted Leadership will have to keep a spread sheet on who is dating so they can make berthing adjustments? Should we use the solution above and house homosexual males in female heterosexual berthing and homosexual females in male heterosexual berthing? No, that won’t work. All the homosexual males are clustered in the same berthing and all the homosexual females are clustered in the same berthing. It is back to the same problem. On the other hand, if we don’t care about segregating potential sexual partners, think of the money savings and convenience of opening all restrooms and showers to everyone. No more long walks down the passageway on a ship to find the sex-specific rest room. No more worrying about separate male or female berthing. Since none of the predominantly 18-25 year olds with raging hormones ever have sex when they are living in a barracks or deployed on a ship for eight months to a year, it won’t be a problem. Wait… you mean 18-25 year olds with raging hormones do have sex while deployed or living in a barracks? Say it ain’t so. Anyone who agrees with the above mentioned hygiene and berthing ideas and thinks they are feasible lives in Fantasyland and has no idea what it is like to be in the military. That is a recipe for turning an aircraft carrier deployment into a singles cruise.

Maybe we should just tell people not to have inappropriate sex, keep their sex life to themselves and keep their behavior professional. What a coincidence. That is exactly what the military does now. When it isn’t broke, don’t fix it.

Everyone knows that there are many homosexuals in the United States military who serve honorably and do their jobs well. There is no reason that your sexual preference prevents you from flying a plane, shooting a rifle, or watching a radar screen. The point is that no one’s sex life is a subject for discussion at work. To serve openly as a homosexual means that you have told people around you about your sex life. No one, heterosexual or homosexual should be discussing their sex life at work. It is not professional and does nothing to improve the climate in the work place. Everyone’s sex life, not just homosexuals, should be subject to Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. I hear liberal media always talk about how the policy doesn’t work. They constantly refer to some Arabic language speakers who were separated for homosexual acts. If you publish those acts to push the envelope, you cannot expect any other result. Heterosexuals are separated for inappropriate sexual relationships as well when they become known. The idea is to keep your private life to yourself and it is no one else’s business. To those who say the policy doesn’t work, I would say that I haven’t seen that in a lot of year’s experience. It has worked well every place I have been stationed when people keep their sex life to themselves and do their jobs professionally.