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| GAYS IN THE MILITARY | |
 January 2000 
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What should the U.S. military policy be toward homosexuals? Co-executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network Michelle Benecke and Robert Maginnis, senior director of national security and foreign affairs at the Family Research Council, take your questions. |
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Alex
Holmes of Sydney, Australia asks: Those who support the current policy say that an openly gay policy disrupts cohesion in the unit. It seems to me that the current policy encourages or validates prejudice by "expecting" other soldiers to be intolerant of gay men and women. Don't you think that if military leaders were to accept homosexuality in the ranks that it would make it easier for soldiers to do so?
Michelle
Beneke responds: Alex, as a former military officer, I believe in the chain-of-command. When senior leaders give orders or pass on guidance from above with commitment, soldiers follow. Unfortunately, senior leaders have been missing in action when it comes to stopping anti-gay harassment, which is not supposed to be tolerated under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Pursue." The problem is indeed worsened by the fact that this law itself creates a double standard and stigmatizes gay Americans. In the absence of leadership, anti-gay harassment - threats, verbal gay-bashing and even assaults - has become the norm in many military units. The current situation at Fort Campbell, Kentucky is only one example. As the world now knows due to SLDN's efforts, PFC Barry Winchell was harassed on a daily basis for more than four months prior to being murdered last summer by a fellow soldier based on a perception that he was gay. Winchell's superiors joined in rather than stopping the harassment. Incredibly, even after Winchell's murder, harassment has continued unabated at Fort Campbell. Some soldiers have even mocked Winchell's murder as a way to intimidate and threaten others, making references to "faggots" and baseball bats. One noncommissioned at Fort Campbell forced his unit to sing the cadence, "Faggot, faggot down the street, shoot him, shoot him 'til he retreats," as they ran across the base on a morning run. It is bad enough that a senior noncommissioned officer (NCO) would force his soldiers to sing such a cadence. That he would think it was acceptable to have his soldiers sing this cadence loudly and in public as they ran across the post, within hearing of many others, is a damning pronouncement on the command climate at Fort Campbell, and on military leadership generally. Hostile climates like this one make it difficult for more fair-minded officers, noncommissioned officers and soldiers to do the right thing. This climate also brings tremendous pressure to bear on young soldiers to prove their manhood by proving their homophobia, as syndicated columnist Deb Price points out in a recent column. Price writes, "Our military leaders train young warriors to kill. Unfortunately, they're failing to teach that gay Americans are not the enemy. Instead, all too may are fostering a climate of hate and intolerance." Unfortunately, Price's analysis is right on target.
Robert
Maginnis responds: The 1993 statute, which is different from the administration's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" regulations, was written to protect unit cohesion. Cohesion is the glue that holds small units together. It is built and sustained through constant and close association and it is based on total trust and confidence in one another. Legions of military experience have found that favoritism and double standards destroy this glue. Open homosexuals in forced intimate military units create the likelihood that sex will manifest itself in sexual competition. Sexual competition results in favoritism and double standards that defeat cohesion. In such an openly sexually competitive culture, the majority of heterosexuals find being stripped of privacy before homosexuals repugnant. There is nothing prejudicial about that fact. Finally, there is little likelihood that American military leaders will embrace open homosexuality anytime soon. A recent survey of military officers found that three of every four oppose open homosexuality in the service and more than a quarter would leave if the policy changed. Besides, the facts about open homosexuality, which compelled Congress to pass the 1993 law, have not been lost on a highly educated officer corps.
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