DADT: Finis

I don’t go to bed at night worrying about gay rights. Chalk it up to the provincialism of growing up Hoosier during the Cold War or perhaps to all those years in Catholic schools. Or blame it on a lack of empathy. Whatever.

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Don’t get me wrong: I don’t oppose gay rights. I believe in equality. Indeed, I fervently hope that my dealings with others do not betray whatever lingering homophobic (not to mention sexist or racist) inclinations still fester in my sinful soul. That said, advancing the cause of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered Americans is just not one of my core issues.

Still, I find myself increasingly irked by the way senior military leaders are responding to this whole “don’t ask, don’t tell” business. Above all, what irks me is their shilly-shallying. Forgive me for being harsh: But the appropriate word is “gutless.”

Here’s army chief of staff General George Casey testifying before a Senate committee on the question of whether gays should be allowed to serve openly: “I do have serious concerns about the impact of repeal of the law on a force that is fully engaged in two wars and has been at war for 8 1/2 years,” Casey said. “We just don't know the impacts on readiness and military effectiveness.”

For DADT or against it? The chief of staff of the whole United States Army is not prepared to say: He just has “concerns.” Casey has been out taking the temperature of the troops. “There is apprehension. There is uncertainty, and that is why it is so important to study this.”

Here is air force chief of staff General Norton Schwartz on the same subject: “This is not the time to perturb the force that is, at the moment, stretched by demands in Iraq and Afghanistan….”

If General Casey really cared all that much about readiness (not to mention the effects of uncertainty) and if General Schwartz wanted to avoid perturbing the force, perhaps they should reflect on the implications of perpetual war. But no: It’s the prospect of gays serving openly that has them wringing their hands. State a principled position? Not a chance. What they propose to do is to study the problem—the standard response of bureaucrats looking for ways to stall.

There are three points to be made here:

First, we’ve got too much war and too few troops to fight them. With even President Obama now committed to more war not less, one way to close the gap is to maximize the pool of Americans deemed eligible to serve. To make sexual orientation a bar from service shrinks the pool of eligibles (and also creates a convenient “Get out of khaki” card for those already in uniform, but having second thoughts). With open-ended war now a core principle of U.S. national security policy, DADT makes about as much sense as declaring people ineligible for military service just because they have tattoos.

Second, rather than providing a rationale for inaction, war demands the swift elimination of dumb-ass policies. History provides ample precedent for this. When President Harry Truman ordered the military to desegregate in 1948, the armed forces (the Air Force partially excepted) dragged their feet. As a consequences, when General Matthew Ridgway took command of U.S. forces fighting in Korea at the end of 1950, he found himself with an army that still consisted of white units and black units. Fending off the Chinese made Ridgway’s life complicated enough without having to worry about the prospect of a white rifleman being assigned to a black unit or a black truck driver ending up in a white transportation outfit. Segregation was interfering with the effective conduct of the war, so Ridgway ordered 8th U.S. Army to integrate forthwith—without asking the troops if the results might “perturb” them.

Third, and perhaps most important, is this: Our culture is in the midst of a vast historical revolution that is transforming American attitudes on anything that touches on gender, sex, and family. The revolution began in the 1920s, really picked up steam in the 1960s, and shows no sign of stopping any time soon. Whether its effects are good or bad is beside the point. What is undeniable is that those effects are massive and irreversible.

Now individual Americans retain the right to opt out of that revolution: In their own thinking and behavior they can choose to remain fixed in the ostensibly idyllic world of Ozzie and Harriet. Yet large institutions such as the armed forces do not have that luxury. In a narrow sense, the military can and should seek to preserve a distinctive value set, cultivating virtues such as discipline, self-sacrifice, and esprit d’corps. Yet in a broader sense, the military that relies on willing recruits to fill its ranks cannot long stand against the prevailing cultural winds. To do so is to put yourself out of business. And that applies today to the issue of gays serving in uniform.