My Don't Ask Don't Tell Policy

For those of you who don't know, the US Armed Forces have a "don't ask don't tell" policy regarding homosexuals serving in the various branches. This means they can serve, as long as they don't tell anyone they're homosexuals. If they're openly gay, they can't serve in the military. That's current policy.

It's taken a lot of heat (and it's in the news as the Obama administration might eventually try to change it). Sure, allowing gays to serve openly would be a mild disruption, but so was allowing blacks and women to serve in any capacity. OK, so the military isn't an agent for social change, but that doesn't mean it can't keep up with the times and contemporary values. Yes, the military is a conservative institution, but you can't use that as a cloak for being intolerant. And why does being gay mean you can't control yourself?

Well, let me ask my readers this: does having separate male and female facilities make sense? If the rational, tolerant and enlightened answer is yes, then I submit it may be rational, tolerant and enlightened to not let gays serve in the military at all. This may be a shocking statement coming from a guy with a gay best friend, but hear me out--it's not prejudice. IF we accept that coed everything is unacceptable in the military, the question is, why? Presumably because you don't want certain shared facilities among people who could possibly be sexually attracted to each other. It would cause problems beyond what letting blacks in the military caused. Not just a disruption you get used to, but a permanent tension and distraction among soldiers (after all, how many young men and women in good health and of fighting age get used to people their sexually attracted to enough that they can treat them as members of the opposite gender invariably without hesitation? We wouldn't last very long as a species if that happened). With letting women serve, there was a simple solution: separate facilities. But with homosexuals, it presents a problem. With 2 separate facilities, you can have all the straight men in one area and all the straight women in another without risking a sexual attraction. BUT, once you start dealing with homosexuals instead of heterosexuals, you can never have more than TWO PEOPLE in a room without someone falling into another person's gender preference.

So by saying gays should serve openly--or at all--we're not just saying that homosexuals are every bit as restrained and professional as heterosexuals (I don't think many people would have a problem with that, and people could get over their discomfort with homosexuality in general), we're also saying that homosexuals are MORE restrained and professional than heterosexuals, a position for which there is no evidence.

So I say, if we let gays serve openly in the military, and I'm not necessarily against it, why not allow coed everything? If it's OK for two homosexuals of the same gender to shower together, why not a straight man and a woman? Or are there more double standards than we want to admit in our push for equality everywhere?