REBUTTALS TO ARGUMENTS FOR LIFTING THE "GAY BAN" IN THE MILITARY "This paper w as written by an active-duty Army officer. The views expressed in this paper ar e those of the author and should not be construed as necessarily reflecting th e official position of the Department of the Army or the Department of Defense." Following is a compendium of arguments offered in the public media to support t he repeal of the Department of Defense's policy that homosexuality is incompatib le with military service, and other matters pertaining to the debate. Numbers i n parentheses refer to endnotes. 1. The "gay ban" should be lifted because gays h ave always served successfully in the military, performing their military duties well. This is a red herring. Gays who served successfully did so because they concealed their homosexuality and did not seek the right to proclaim or practice it overtly. Today's gay advocates want the opposite-- the right to be an openl y practicing homosexual in the military. This argument is one the gay advocacy p resents as it strongest point. In fact it is the weakest argument in favor of i ntegrating gays. First, the gays who served successfully did so by pretending t hey were not gay. In other words, they adopted as far as possible the identity of straights. Successful soldiers they may have been in the strictly military a rts, but not because they were gay. They were gays pretending to be straight. S econd, there is nothing in the DOD policy excluding homosexuals which relates to their abilities to kill other people. (1) We freely admit that gays can be as sanguine as anyone. There is nothing in the policy relating to their tactical a bilities, strategic planning skills, or anything else implied by this argument. The DOD policy states, in full (directly quoted): "Homosexuality is incompatibl e with military service. The presence in the military environment of persons wh o engage in homosexual conduct or who, by their statements, demonstrate a tenden cy to engage in homosexual conduct, seriously impairs the accomplishment of the military mission. The presence of such members adversely affects the ability of the armed forces to maintain discipline, good order and morale; to foster mutua l trust and confidence among servicemembers; to ensure the integrity of the syst em of rank and command; to facilitate assignment and worldwide deployment of mem bers who frequently must live and work under close conditions affording minimal privacy; to recruit and retain members of the armed forces; to maintain public a cceptability of military service; and to prevent breaches of security." There i s not one word in this policy addressing "successful service" in the way that th e gay lobby would have us believe. The policy really says that the presence of overt, known homosexuals in the military is in itself a fatal deficiency of mili tary character and is unacceptably detrimental to discipline, trust and confiden ce, the integrity of the system of rank and command, privacy of heterosexuals wh o have little or no freedom of association, recruitment and retention, and publi c acceptability. Although Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney has said that the se curity risk part of the policy is a "bit of an old chestnut," it remains part of the policy. (Foreign intelligence services consider homosexuality, drug use, a lcohol abuse, and other non-mainstream behavior to be exploitable, even if the behavior is well-known.) There are entirely different classes of persons who ar e prima facie excluded from military service without consideration of their abil ity to acceptably perform military duties, and no one claims that this discrimin ation is unjustified, for example, convicted felons. It is conceivable that a " felons rights" advocate could point out that felons have surreptitiously enliste d in the military and have performed with distinction; therefore, denial of enli stment on the basis of prior felony conviction is a violation of patriotic felon s' rights to serve their country. The argument for service by gays on the basis of their strictly military abilities is not particularly compelling. 2. Sexual orientation is not the real issue; conduct is. The problem here is twofold. Fi rst, gay advocates must agree to one of two, mutually exclusive sets of conditio ns: that gays should be allowed to serve as long as they never commit any homose xual acts, or that some homosexual activity is impermissible while another shoul d be permitted. As for the first, that gays should serve as long as they remain sexually inactive, no gay-rights advocates have proposed this. This proposition would effectively require gays in the military to remain sexually inactive for as long as they serve-- perhaps as long as 30 years. Is this a realistic propos ition? There is no evidence that gays' sexual desires and urges are weaker than those of straights. (2) Would gays and gay-right advocates agree to it? Not l ikely. Besides, the military does not require (as opposed to encourage) straigh ts remain sexually inactive. If we permit straights alone to be active, would t hat meet the test of "no discrimination?" As for the second proposition, that some homosexual acts could be permitted and others not, gay advocates have caref ully refrained from defining what is permissible. (3) Instead, they have deline ated what is not allowable. But they have framed the entire argument along the lines of sexual harassment rules, saying, for example, that on-duty homosexual p ower plays (such as demands of sexual favors in exchange for good efficiency rep orts) are no more acceptable than heterosexual ones. While we certainly agree, the question is begged that if this kind of conduct is unacceptable, what conduc t or actions are acceptable? The answer can only be that acceptable homosexual a cts are simply those that define what homosexuality is, namely, consensual sexua l relations between members of the same sex. By definition, these relations are acts of sodomy, since gays cannot have sexual intercourse with one another. ( A claim that some gays easily remain celibate-- as do some straights --is easily discarded, as there is no way to expect that only these gays would enlist.) But under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), sodomy is punishable by cour t martial, whether committed by gays or straights. Merely lifting the ban by ex ecutive order will not change this fundamental fact. Oral and anal sodomy are u nlawful for all military members, even if consensual and performed off-duty. On ly the Congress can change this. Gay advocates could point out that the military does not often prosecute straights for this offense. The reason, of course, is quite simple. Consensual sodomy isn't reported by the men and women involved a nd so the acts remain invisible to the military justice system. But it is not true that the military rarely prosecutes consensual heterosexual sodomy. Furti ve, consensual, heterosexual oral sex between members of a unit does sometimes o ccur. These acts are prosecuted the same as homosexual sex, and for the same re ason: they are highly inimical to good order and discipline of the unit. In fact , the policy statement on homosexuality actually applies with little change to h eterosexual sodomy between soldiers not married to each other. With the changes indicated in capitals, it would read, The presence in the military env ironment of persons who... engage in HETEROSEXUAL conduct OUTSIDE MARRIAGE serio usly impairs the accomplishment of the military mission. The presence of such m embers adversely affects the ability of the armed forces to maintain discipline, good order and morale, to foster mutual trust and confidence among servicemembe rs, to ensure the integrity of the system or rank and command, to facilitate ass ignment and worldwide deployment of members who frequently must live and work un der close conditions affording minimal privacy, AND to maintain public acceptabi lity of military service...." There is a reasonably significant incidence when service members are court-martialed for adultery, for example, and are simultane ously charged with oral and/or anal sodomy as well. Sometimes the adultery char ge cannot be proven in court, for example, when there is insufficient evidence t hat intercourse actually occurred. In some of these cases, though, a conviction is obtained on the sodomy charges. Any change of the UCMJ which allowed for un punishable consensual sodomy would make it impossible to obtain these or other s odomy-related convictions-- there would be nothing for which the service member could be convicted. Thus, married, heterosexual men and women would be able to engage in legally unrestrained sexual relations outside the bonds of marriage, s hort of actually having intercourse. This is not to claim that the only thing k eeping married couples loyal is threat of judicial punishment (obviously false), or that the incidence of such conduct would dramatically increase; it is to say that any increase at all would be unacceptable. With well over half the Army ma rried, strong marriages are an important component of combat readiness. (4) In c ombat, the mental health and psychological toughness of a soldier is highly rela ted to the state of his or her marriage and family. (Several medical studies ha ve shown this is so. This phenomenon was first brought to light by Israeli doct ors who noted that combat stress casualties among married soldiers were closely correlated to poor marriages.) Since homosexual sodomy is definitionally done ou tside the bonds of marriage, could consensual sodomy be made illegal only betwee n a married soldier and someone not his or her spouse? If so, there are some di fficult questions we could face: -- could a soldier charged with such an offens e claim that the law violates "equal protection" clauses of the Constitution and federal law, since it discriminates based solely on marital status? -- if such a defense were successful, would a similar defense against a charge of adultery be far behind? Obviously, much of this is speculation. But the complete lack o f debate and analysis on these kinds of questions is disturbing. One suspects t hat gay advocates would prefer not to have such questions debated, since they ex pose the fact that homosexual policies cannot be considered in isolation, but in fact have important and potentially far-reaching social and legal implications. The gay advocacy wants to insist that homosexuality is purely a private matter , and that conduct outside the workplace is irrelevant. But the sexual conduct of a society's members has never been a "purely" private matter. It is the most profound behavioral human characteristic. In the military-- especially in the military --conduct outside the work environment does matter. News media have car ried reports about sex-related problems encountered during Persian Gulf deployme nts in units with both men and women assigned. According to the news reports, s exual relations between male and female soldiers was not uncommon. According to almost all the troops interviewed, this activity was very inimical to morale of the unit and its effectiveness. Unlawful these actions were, but that didn't s top them from happening. Yet we are told by the gay lobby that similar situatio ns involving homosexuals simply won't be a problem. Is there any reason to belie ve that overt homosexual actions under similar conditions would be less detrimen tal than heterosexual ones? Of course not. 3. Integration of homosexuals into the military is no different from integration of blacks. The differences are in fact striking. As General Colin Powell (surely authoritative on racial integrati on) has pointed out, one's race is a "benign characteristic" whereas one's sexua lity is the most profound human behavior. Comparison of the two, he wrote, "is a convenient but invalid argument." Blacks have served successfully in the Ameri can forces since the Revolutionary War, as have gays, we are told. But there th e similarity ends. Blacks did not serve by concealing their racial identity (imp ossible, obviously) as gays have concealed their sexual preference. Until Presid ent Truman integrated the armed forces, blacks served in all-black units, a prac tice dating to the Civil War. There has never been an "all-homosexual" unit. Bl ack advocates insisted on integration so that they would no longer be required t o serve "as blacks." Their desire was to be identified and treated not as "blac k soldiers," but just plain soldiers. This is quite the opposite of gays, who w ish to be identified and treated as "gay soldiers." (5) The impetus towards rac ial integration was that blacks wanted acceptance of the fact that "we are basic ally just like you." Gays want acceptance of the fact that "we are basically un like you." Racial integration was directed toward inclusiveness and eliminatin g distinctions made on the superficial characteristic of skin color. Gay integr ation, despite dissembling claims to the contrary, will result in factionalizati on of units and reinforcement of profound differences far deeper than the superf iciality of skin color. Another point that must be made is that "black conduct" (whatever that might mean) has never been unlawful. Racial persecution is one t hing, and a mighty bad thing, but have any blacks ever been convicted in a court of the actual charge of "committing black acts?" But as we have seen, committi ng homosexual acts is unlawful. It must gall many honorable black soldiers to h ear gay advocates compare the accident of their skin color with the deliberately chosen, unlawful acts of gays. (6) 4. Straight officers and enlisted soldiers m ust undergo sensitivity training to change their obsolete attitudes. This sugges tion was stridently made in an opinion piece in the Nov. 15, 1992 Atlanta Journa l & Constitution (and has been made by many others). The writer made it quite c lear that the only problem with gays serving was not with gays, but with straigh ts. His call was for the military to undergo massive, mandatory special trainin g to make heterosexuals "sensitive" to the issue. The same writer also said that problems from gay integration "will not be the fault of homosexuals... Instead problems would most likely result from [intolerant] resistance...." But as the C hicago Tribune's David Evans has pointed out, shall the Army attempt to muzzle i ts chaplains? Every denomination represented by the chaplaincy does not condone unrepentant homosexuality. (7) If a not-quite-sensitive-enough chaplain preach ed against homosexuality, could he be charged with the court-martial offense of disobedience of a lawful order? And if so, could he claim First Amendment prote ction and thereby challenge the legality of the order? There is no way to predic t the answers to these questions, but they must not be ignored and can't simply be wished away. What about the moral and religious beliefs of soldiers themselve s? Gay advocates paint their pictures if "intolerance" only in the most extreme terms: "gay bashing," "homophobia." They admit only to the possibility of two extremes, either outright acceptance, indeed actual moral and cultural validatio n, of homosexuality, or the other extreme of violent, heterosexual hate directed toward homosexuals. Nonetheless, one cannot duck the matter that many or most s oldiers, like many or most Americans, have sincere, deep religious convictions t hat the practice of homosexuality is morally unacceptable. (8) Can or should th ese troops be drummed out of the service if they peacefully speak out against it ? Would permitting such speech be discrimination against gays? There is anoth er aspect of the strident calls for "sensitivity training" which is not consider ed by voices calling for it. As one soldier with more than 15 years service put it, "All my life I have been taught by my parents and religious leaders that ho mosexuality is wrong. I don't hate homosexuals, but undeniably, homosexual beha vior has been fringe behavior in human cultures around the world throughout hist ory. Now I'm being told that I'm the one who has a problem, that my parents are wrong, that my ministers are wrong, that thousands of years of humanity have be en wrong, and that I must be 're-educated and sensitized.' This is personally i nsulting and smacks of totalitarianism thought control. I didn't join the Army for that." Maybe there are some social problems that can't solved by just formin g another encounter group, and maybe these concerns are an example. 5. Our Europe an allies, except for Great Britain, have integrated gays without problems. This is a disingenuous argument. The issue we are facing is not whether integration of gays is acceptable and workable in say, Holland, but in America. This argume nt assumes that American society, culture, values, mores, and importantly, its m ilitary, are practically identical with those of various European nations. But such is not the case. America is radically different from Europe and has been si nce the earliest days of the republic. Alexis de Tocqueville, writing in the 18 30s, recognized this with his question, "What is this new man, this American?" The people who immigrated to the United States from Europe did so not to establi sh "Europe-somewhere-else," but to build and be part of something new and differ ent. Whether gay integration in European armies has proved to be successful has never really been tested where its test truly lies-- in wartime. Except for Fra nce, no European nation has fought in battle since gays were admitted, and Franc e's official "tolerance" falls well short of what American gay advocates insist on. Evidence of peacetime success of gay integration in European armies is pure ly anecdotal. (9) No rigorous, peer-reviewed study of the issue has been presen ted by gay advocates to support their contention. The experience of European a rmies could be relevant to what is possible in the U.S. Army, but it is not axio matic. Serious, thorough, impartial study of the European experience must be do ne before we know the answer. (As an aside, it is kind of curious that Europe is suddenly the darling child of the liberal left, after a year of Europe bashing in the 500th anniversary of Columbus' voyage.) 6. The military wastes $27 million per year discharging homosexuals. This figure, contained in a GAO report, is mi sleading if taken out of context-- which it always is by gay rights advocates. The report assumes that if the Army spends $28,000 training an enlisted soldier, then subsequently discharges him for homosexuality, the Army has "wasted" $28,0 00. However, most training and recruiting costs are fixed costs which cannot b e accounted for accurately on a pro-rata basis. In 1991, 199 soldiers were disc harged for homosexuality. Had the Army never accessed these persons, the Army's training and recruiting costs would not have been different by one dollar becau se almost all monies spent for these purposes are for "overhead" costs which wou ld require a drastic and dramatic reduction of the Army's troop strength to affe ct. Actually, the costs incurred in discharging homosexuals are nil. From now to 1995, the Army's strength will drop from approximately 670,000 to a planned figure of 535,000. Involuntary separations have occurred and will almost certai nly continue. Since force managers deal in aggregate numbers, any sort of separ ation, involuntary or not, counts toward the mandated reductions. Thus, soldier s who simply decline to reenlist, or who are discharged because of a court-marti al conviction, or separate for any other reason (including for homosexuality), a re all included in reaching the mandated year-end strengths. The accusation that discharging gays wastes money is made from a preset point of departure, namely, that homosexuality is compatible with military service. However, DOD's position is that precluding homosexuals from service increases, rather than decreases, m ilitary readiness. Thus, the cost of this preclusion is not "waste," but is mon ey well spent. ENDNOTES 1. This is germaine because combat is the raison d'etre of an Army. Clausewitz wrote in On War that killing is war's defining act; it is what makes war what it is: "Killing is the sine qua non of war." It is curio us that gay advocates seem (perhaps unwittingly) to be making homosexuals' abili ty to kill a point in their favor. 2. Quite the contrary, in fact. The body of p eer-reviewed studies done on sexual habits of homosexuals firmly concludes that they are, on average, vastly more promiscuous than straights. A recent Universi ty of Chicago study found that for the U.S. population as a whole, the average n umber of sex partners a person has from age 18 on is 7.15 (8.67 for those never married). In contrast, the Kinsey Institute found in its 1978 study that 43 per cent of homosexual men have had sex with 500 or more partners, and 28 percent wi th 1,000 or more-- thus, almost three-fourths of homosexual men have more than 5 00 different sex partners. In the same study, 70 percent of white homosexual me n stated more than half their sex partners were strangers with whom they had sex only once. 79 percent said more than half their sex partners were strangers. 3. What is permissible within the military, that is. However, for at least the la st 20 years, one of the principal gay-rights objectives has been the removal of all age-of-consent laws for sexual activity as well as decriminalization of all sodomy laws. 4. Recently, the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel s ent a message to Army units preparing to deploy to Somalia which said (DAPE-ZX m sg dtg 081200Z Dec 92, Subj: Family Readiness During Deployment): "Mission accom plishment is directly related to soldiers' confidence that their families are sa fe and capable of carrying on during their absence. Family factors should be co nsidered in unit readiness." While not addressing the subject of sexual activit y, the message clearly states that the Army's position (based on hard lessons le arned by commanders in the field) is that soldiers in combat areas who have unwa rranted, avoidable concerns about their families are less capable in battle. 5. In autumn 1992, a man identifying himself as a member of ACT-UP, a prominent gay -rights group, wrote the superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy, stating th at ACT-UP intended to sue in federal court to require the military academies to have set-aside quota positions for homosexuals in the Corps of Cadets. 6. There i s another fatal deficiency in equating racial discrimination with exclusion of h omsexuals. Racial discrimination ascribes to individuals certain characteristic s based on his or her membership in a racial group. That is to say, it moves fr om generalized, preconceived notions about the group and ascribes those notions to a particular person of that group. Thus, "blacks are lazy" or "Indians are d runks" seeks to identify any black as lazy and any Indian as an alcoholic. An i ndividual is thus pre-judged based on his membership in a group. This is not the case with gays. It is not prejudicial to proclaim that homosexuality is what h omosexuals do (conduct defines the class), and therefore a person who identifi es himself as homosexual, either by admission or conduct, effectually wraps hims elf in the mantle of the definition of the group. It is homosexual conduct which defines what homosexuality is. 7. It should be pointed out as well that 139 mil lion Americans are members of religious denominations which do not condone homos exuality. 8. In November 1992, Colorado voters passed a measure which prohibited the state from granting gays special status or rights. A similar, though more s tringent, measure was barely defeated in Oregon. In June 1992, 1,500 persons pa rticipated in a "gay pride" march in Asheville, N.C. The next week 20,000 peopl e in Asheville marched in opposition to the gay rights agenda. 9. Other anecdot al evidence is emerging that integration of openly gay persons into some foreign militaries has actually been fraught with difficulties and that homosexuality i s not accepted by the rank and file. (Lengthily reported in "Army Times," a civ ilian-run, independent newspaper, and other journals. "Army Times," incidentall y, supports ending the ban.) APPENDIX Other Matters Relating to Homosexuality Whi ch are Relevant to Military Service 1. The oft-repeated assertion that 10 percent of all people (and hence 10 percent of the military) are homosexual is based on a single Kinsey Institute study done in 1948. The study is fatally flawed. It s subjects included only volunteers. Three hundred of the subjects were prison inmates, a population which has since been proven to be over-represented by pers ons who either committed or were victims of sexual deviance. Kinsey did not wri te that 10 percent of people are gay; he stated that "10 percent of the [study's ] white males are more or less exclusively homosexual for at least three years b etween the ages of 16 and 55." (The obvious question is what "more or less excl usively" means.) But Kinsey also wrote, "4 percent of the white males are exclu sively homosexual throughout their lives after adoloscence." That's only four percent of a sample that was skewed to begin with! In the 1992 presidential elec tion, only 2.6 percent of voters polled said they were gay-- this in an election in which homosexual rights was an overt issue, in anonymous polling. (The New Republic, Jan. 4 & 11, 1993.) 2. The rate of sexually-transmitted diseases (STDs) in homosexuals is between 20-50 times greater than for heterosexuals. (The Brit ish Journal of Medicine, April 1987.) 3. Between one-fourth to one-third of homos exual men are alcoholics. (Journal of Homosexuality, vol. 14, no. 2) 4. 59 perce nt of AIDS cases found among all men and adolescents are the result of homosexua l sex. (Centers for Disease Control, "HIV/AIDS Surveillance," Sept. 1991, p. 9) 5. Homosexual men attempt suicide at a rate six times greater than heterosexual men. (Bell and Weinberg, Homosexualities: A Study of Diversity Among Men and Wom en, 1978, p. 308) 6. 78 percent of gays have been affected by an STD at least onc e. (Rueda, The Homosexual Network, 1982, p. 53) 7. Nationwide, the incidence of d iagnosed cases of AIDS among homosexual men aged 13-29 is rising (Centers for Di sease Control); in San Francisco, the number of HIV-positive homosexuals is also increasing, with the highest incidence among gay males between 17-25 (Dept. of Health; both statistics reported in "Newsweek," Jan. 11, 1992). It is from this age group that almost all military recruits are drawn.