I am going to take the liberty of paraphrasing your response into basic points that I can respond to. If I at any time get the paraphrase wrong, feel free to yell at me or whatever it is you do.
Point: Being Gay is hard to admit.
Alright. I can dig. However, as you said yourself, "coming clean" was the best thing your openly gay friends did. Living a lie was hard, and "coming clean" was even harder, but they felt incredibly well afterward.
I hold that "coming clean" in the Armed Forces, and thereby no longer living the lie of being heterosexual, would more than make up for any apprehensions. Being afraid of what people will think is a daily occurrence for the LBGT community. If they are going to let that keep them from coming "out of the closet," then this argument isn't about them. This debate is about those who want to serve openly and welcome the idea that people may not like their sexual orientation.
The military can not regulate the thoughts their servicemen have. However, the military
can regulate who they serve with. And when a basic right of the United States is to announce and live freely as a LBGT individual, the military should respect that same basic right.
Point: Cohesion of the unit is in Jeopardy.
Hmmm. Interesting point. However, I point you to these quotes:
"Shortly after General Washington took
command of the Army, the white colonists decided that not
only should no Black slaves or freemen be enlisted, but
that those already serving in the Army should be
dismissed." (Mullen 12)
George Washington himself didn't believe that blacks should serve in the military. Basically, even though we were fighting a military power five hundred times our size and power, they were unfit to fight for their nation.
"When the Civil War began, blacks
weren't allowed to fight in the Union army." (Utley 18)
Unfortunately, Abraham Lincoln was more concerned with
political relations than the treatment of Afro-American
slaves.
Abraham Lincoln. Yes, that Abraham Lincoln. He did not see African Americans as fit for military service until he realized that this would be a long and drawn out Civil War. Then it was only because he needed bodies to fill out suits.
For its part, the Army resisted the demands, its spokesmen contending that the service's enormous size and power should not be used for social experiment, especially during a war. Further justifying their position, Army officials pointed out that their service had to avoid conflict with prevailing social attitudes, particularly when such attitudes were jealously guarded by Congress. In this period of continuous demand and response, the Army developed a racial policy that remained in effect throughout the war with only superficial modifications sporadically adopted to meet changing conditions.
This is the Army response to desegregation of the Armed Forces during World War II. "Should not be used as a social experiment" sounds remarkably familiar.
The White House tried to adjust the conflicting demands of the civil rights leaders and the Army traditionalists. Eager to placate and willing to compromise, President Franklin D. Roosevelt sought an accommodation by directing the War Department to provide jobs for Negroes in all parts of the Army. The controversy over integration soon became more public, the opponents less reconcilable; in the weeks following the President's meeting with black representatives on 27 September 1940 the Army countered black demands for integration with a statement released by the White House on 9 October. To provide "a fair and equitable basis" for the use of Negroes in its expansion program, the Army planned to accept Negroes in numbers approximate to their proportion in the national population, about 10 percent. Black officers and enlisted men were to serve, as was then customary, only in black units that were to be formed in each major branch, both combatant and noncombatant, including air units to be created as soon as pilots, mechanics, and technical specialists were trained. There would be no racial intermingling in regimental organizations because the practice of separating white and black troops had, the Army staff said, proved satisfactory over a long period of time. To change would destroy morale and impair preparations for national defense. Since black units in the Army were already "going concerns, accustomed through many years to the present system" of segregation, "no experiments should be tried . . . at this critical time."
"To change would destroy morale and impair preparations for national defense." In other words, letting blacks into more positions in the military would hinder our ability to defend the nation from the Nazis and the Japanese.
Every argument being brought forth by you, Dave, and the opponents of LBGT openly serving in the military was already brought up once before. In the fight against allowing blacks to serve in the military. Segregation was eventually enforced, and many racists in the Army (both soldiers and enlisted officers) were against the idea. According to Mighty Norcal, a successful soldier in his own right, there are
still racists that he directly works with when stationed on his "tea parties."
Nowadays being black is widely accepted. Walking down the street, you would be hard pressed to find someone still prejudiced enough to say that black people should not serve alongside their white brethren in the Armed Forces. The Armed Forces were forced to accept segregation, despite their wild claims of "unit cohesion" and "national defense (read: security)."
The Armed Forces will survive openly LBGT people in their ranks that serve alongside heterosexual men. They will fight just as well as before, and will have many more soldiers amongst their ranks once LBGT can serve openly and proudly.
And for that reason, and that reason alone, the military should not use policy to infringe on the rights of LBGT people to be open about their sexuality.
