I was chatting about this recently with a friend of mine who was hoping President Obama would repeal the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell clause in the American military. After talking about it for a couple of minutes, I realized that I had seen gays serving in the military on Carrier, an extended PBS mini-series about life on the U.S.S. Nimitz. While no one seemed to be asking, a couple of sailors were openly gay and no one really seemed to care that much about it. While I am sure you could find some sailors on board that didn’t like serving with gays, they also showed the saga of kicking a sailor off the ship because he openly hated blacks and wouldn’t hide it.
The issue on the Nimitz is not how to handle sailors who are gay but rather how do you manage relationships on a warship with long deployments and crew that has both sexes on board and really no accommodations for those relationships.
While there will always be some opposition to it, much of the American military brass doesn’t seem to have a problem with it. Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. John Shalikashvili (Ret.) and former Senator and Secretary of Defense William Cohen spoke against the policy publicly in January 2007: "I now believe that if gay men and lesbians served openly in the United States military, they would not undermine the efficacy of the armed forces," General Shalikashvili wrote. "Our military has been stretched thin by our deployments in the Middle East, and we must welcome the service of any American who is willing and able to do the job."
In December 2007, 28 retired generals and admirals urged Congress to repeal the policy, citing evidence that 65,000 gay men and women are currently serving in the armed forces and that there are over 1,000,000 gay veterans. On November 17, 2008, 104 retired generals and admirals signed a similar statement.
Apparently this is only an issue in very few armed forces. Of the 26 countries that participate militarily in NATO, 22 permit gay people to serve. The Canadian Forces lifted the ban on gay members in 1992. Probably one of the most feared militaries in the world is the Israeli Defense Forces whose policies allow gay men and lesbians to serve openly and without discrimination or harassment due to actual or perceived sexual orientation, including special units. My feeling is that if you are a good enough soldier to fight in the Israeli military, you are good enough to serve anywhere.
In other words, this is a political issue about votes rather than an issue over military preparedness. Personally I agree with General Shalikashvili, if someone wants to serve, let them serve.
