Ask, Tell, Single Room?
I’m all for gays, straights, blacks, whites, browns, Catholics, Protestants, and Jews serving in the military without having to keep any of their essential characteristics to themselves. Muslims in the military is an evolving situation and the jury’s out.
But if you’re gay, you should have every right to openly serve, with the understanding that you’ve got to room alone. This isn’t bigoted or homophobic. It’s part and parcel of wanting to serve effectively.
Why don’t straight men and women share barracks? Because they’re physically attracted to each other and wouldn’t be able and shouldn’t be asked to constantly have to avert their eyes and regularly take cold showers, especially in co-ed shower rooms. There’s enough sexual harassment activity in the military as it is, with the sexes living separately.
Now let’s make the even-handed assumption, as I do, that gay folks have no greater and no less an ability to control their sexual urges than do their straight brothers and sisters.
With that as a given, who does an openly gay man or woman room with? If they’re in the barracks with members of their own sex (but not sexual orientation), they’re in the same situation that the military, for good reason, discourages among members of the opposite sex. They’d be living with fellow soldiers they might be sexually attracted to, even if that attraction isn’t reciprocal.
And if they room with members of their own sex who share their sexual orientation, the door is open to sexual activity, sexual harassment, and constant coverups. All are distractions from the focus required when you or your comrades’ lives are on the line. It’s the same thinking that’s behind prizefighters practicing abstinence prior to going into batle.
At best, maybe you can pair off one gay man and one gay woman, but that’s way too forward thinking for the military and the majority of the American public.
So we’re left with single rooms for all openly gay members of the military. If that becomes the law, straight soldiers could end up claiming to be gay in order to get a little privacy, while, to see a little skin, gay soldiers might well not tell.
We’re all, straight and gay, painting ourselves into a hell of a corner. The imperfect status quo is starting to sound pretty good, especially when the unintended consequences of policy shifts aren’t being fleshed out thoroughly.
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The British Armed Forces have allowed gay men and women to serve openly for atleast a decade now without any such policies and we seem to get along just fine. If we can do it, surely the USA should be able to aswell?