Debating Point: Gays in the Military

I suppose that I may simply be losing touch with what's going on in the world. But I wonder if anyone seriously thinks that the military should switch to having co-ed barracks...other than perhaps as a plot for a comedy. If not, I'm having trouble understanding the difference between forcing a woman to undress, shower, and sleep with men ogling her every move, and forcing a man into same situtation...the only difference being the gender of the recipient of unwanted attention. But the recent obsession with undoing the military's policy of "don't ask-don't tell" strikes me as rather an exercise in looking for problems...perhaps to distract us from the very real financial, economic, and foreign policy problems that are being crowded off the public stage.

I think that the military exists for one purpose, and one purpose only: to neutralize or destroy any threat against the country, and to do it as efficiently as possible. Anything that detracts from that mission --- such as introducing internal sexual tension into a unit that should be concentrating on destroying the enemy --- is a luxury. We can do so if we choose, because at the present time we're far more powerful than any country on the face of the earth. But there is a reason why all military units in history have separated men from women...at least, until the present day: they don't want romantic thoughts and conflicts to intrude on battlefield responsibilities. Introducing the same thing into all-male or all-female barracks isn't something to do lightly, or out of some sense of political correctness.

This does not mean that homosexuals should be hounded out of the service, or beaten within an inch of their lives merely because of their sexual orientation. If push came to shove, I'd be standing shoulder-to-shoulder with those trying to protect our comrade who was being attacked from within. And away from the front lines, there are many jobs in the military for which "sexual tension" in the ranks simply wouldn't matter. But we don't train our military to be enlightened philosophers: we train them to kill enemies on command, and without mercy. And when our surival is on the line, we're better off being defended by a division filled with Conan the Barbarian, rather than one consisting of Mr. Sensitivity.

Unlike most people voicing opinions on the subject, I don't pretend to know the answer. But I do know that we are not asking the right questions. As a result, the current "gays in the military" debate is missing the whole point of having a military in the first place: we should be concentrating on what makes our armed forces stronger, more powerful, and more ruthlessly effective. We should not be using it as a laboratory for conducting experiments in human sociology.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.