Asymmetric Military

Obama is putting his sincere sympathy for American homosexuals above what's best for the military.

"Don't ask don't tell" is actually an inspired compromise, a formalization of the de facto American military approach since George Washington called the first formation in 1775. It allows homosexual soldiers who wish to serve their country to do so while eliminating the negative effects to morale that would come about from a completely open policy.

Detractors of DADA often give two analogies to make their case (usually followed by some ad-hominem attack):

One is that excluding open gays is similar to the forties-era segregation of black soldiers. Segregation is different from an outright ban, but the analogy doesn't apply anyways because there are no essential differences between people of different races.

The second analogy is that permitting open gays in the military wouldn't be any different from having women in the military, and women have greatly contributed to the military. People who make this argument are correct that women do an excellent job and have made tremendous contributions to our war efforts.

That being said, having women integrated into the military brings its share of problems. During my time in Iraq, scandalous fraternization policy breeches occupied a lot of commanders' time (they told one captain that he couldn't be alone with female soldiers. What would they tell a gay soldier with that problem?). When couples inevitably formed or females became pregnant, the results were inconvenient personnel shuffles (husbands and wives; and boyfriends and girlfriends couldn't be in the same section). Although I never witnessed it, this article discusses the problem with sexual assaults amongst soldiers of the opposite sex. And, this occurred in a situation where women and men slept in separate quarters and had different showering and bathroom facilities, where there were clear boundaries.

Now, imagine the above problems- except pregnancy, of course- amongst soldiers of the same sex (we know that most homosexual soldiers wouldn't assault other soldiers sexually, but neither do most straight soldiers assault women. Yet...): No separate facilities; soldiers cowed by a speech code (for whatever reason, most male-soldier humor is sexual in nature and guys tease each other about their sexuality all of the time) and resentful for it; soldiers go off-post to a gay bar; two soldiers get drunk together and one takes advantage of the other (this happened in my college fraternity); guys carrying on, flirting; cliques, formal or informal, spring up, causing dissension.

The above things will happen if Obama changes DADA and soldiers won't like it. When the percentage of openly gay soldiers reaches a certain number, recruitment will suffer.

People will dismiss the above scenarios as bigotry and ignorance (of what?) and it's true that almost no one policy change would render the military useless, but open homosexuality in the military will cause more trouble than it's worth. Shouldn't making the best military, and not conforming it to PC agendas, be our primary concern? It is for the generals who are aware of the issues I've described and are the reason Obama hasn't succeeded so far.