Out in the Mountains
From All Angles:
A Look at Gays
in the Military

(Note: This series intends to look at can-
troversial questions from a number of vari-
ous perspectives, sometimes seriously,
sometimes not so seriously. Several grains
of salt are recommended before reading.)

I don't know but I've been told
Right—wing folks are pretty cold

Want to keep the ban on gays

They think hate is A—okay

Forward march...right right right right...

For decades now, gays and lesbians have
been asking for equal rights in areas such as
employment and housing, but conservatives
have fought long and hard against such leg-
islation and claimed that it grants homo-
sexuals “special rights.” Now it seems as
though they've changed their minds. Gay men
and lesbians, they believe, should be able to
legally dodge the draft if they want to.

That's one special right I've held dear for
years, and I thank the opposition for work-
ing hard to preserve it for me. I've always
treasured the fact that I was a privileged
member of society and could avoid the
draft ifI wanted. To me, it was one of those
extra special benefits associated with being
gay, something like being able to share
your partner's wardrobe and cut clothing
costs in half.

But what if gays and lesbians finally find
popular acceptance in American society, as
it appears they will? And then what if the
US. starts in on some unpopular war carn-
paign somewhere in the world? There were
thousands of young men during the Viet-
nam era who wished they could avoid the
draft, but with homosexuality still viewed
as a stigmatizing moral sin, few were apt to
take advantage of the military's sexual loop-
hole in order to obtain their freedom and
maintain their pacifist ideologies. If there

were to be another Vietnam in the future,
there might be far more than ten percent of
the teenage population wearing pink tri-
angles on their way to the draft board. Rather
than pull up stakes and haul off to Canada,
all the savvy draft—dodging boy would need
to do ‘is invest in a pair of purple pumps.

If the ban on homosexuals in the military is

still in place at that future time, the con-
servatives would have made draft—dodging
easier than ever for Americans. Who cares
if that might put the nation even more at
risk in a time of war? It sure beats having
all those pansies on patrol at the front.

Those like columnist Mona Charen of the
Burlington Free Press know the dangers of
having gays at the front. Though her logic
strains like a constipated elephant through-
out her popular columns, she inevitably
gets her final point across: the army is there
to win wars. That means hating and killing
the enemy, and with gay and lesbian people
in the service, there just might not be
enough hate and bloodthirst to satisfy the
likes of Charen.

Of course, hate is what this thing is all
about, as E. Anthony Rotundo beautifully
demonstrates in his article “Where the Mil-
itary's Antipathy to Homosexuals Comes
From” (Chronicle of Higher Education,
March 31, 1993). The problem isn't homo-
sexuals in the army; it's homophobes in the
army. They're the ones that threaten to
cause unrest in the ranks, who claim that
morale will be undermined by lifting the
ban, who can't stand the idea of appearing
naked in a shower before someone of the
same sex. They're also the ones beating up
gay servicemen as a means of getting their
messages across to Congress. Nice people,
these; Charen suggests we should listen to
what they're saying rather than pay atten-
tion to all those gay rights activists with
their hidden agendas.

Arguments like Charen's are full of fear.
Her basic argument is that society's per-
ceptions of gays will make it difficult to
have them in the army, so it's best to just
exclude them and keep society's ignorance
intact. It's kind of the same argument rape

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victims often fight against in courts. “Sure,
the man was depraved who raped you, but
you asked for it by being a woman and try.
ing to look attractive.” In the end, it's the
woman's fault, not the man's. With gays in
the military, it's our fault that others feel the
urge to spit on us, others who have been
“properly” trained by homophobes like
Charen in a home-front version of mil.
itaristic indoctrination.

Then again, maybe having gays and les-
bians in the military would best perpetuate
that desired warlust in the armed services.
What better way to train our troops to hate
than to have actual objects of hatred right
there to work with? After all, the army can't
motivate men any more by comparing them
to women in basic training. If they can't use
words like “faggot” or “dyke” any more ei-
ther, what will be left? “Move it, you bunch
of no—good newspaper columnists! You're
running like a herd of goddarn congress-
men!” It just doesn't have the same ring to
it (but I like it all the same).

And to look at things from an even more
extreme angle, have the conservatives ever
thought that maybe putting gays and les-
bians on the front lines would be a good
way of getting rid of them? I mean, as long
as they think we're worthless human be-
ings, why not draft us and use us like they
used to use black battalions in the old days
— as expendable pawns in the rich white
game of war?

It's no secret then when a war is actually on
somewhere in the world, the ban gets set
aside anyway, since the army needs all the
willing and trained personnel it can find.
That's why during the Persian Gulf Crisis,
gays and lesbians were asked to continue to
serve, even though they would be dis-
honorably discharged once the conflict was
over. After all, it's mostly during peacetime
that homo—witch—hunts take place, most like-
ly as a re-direction of the military need to ac-
tually have some kind of enemy in mind. In
their world view, peacetime sucks. Gay peo-
ple provide a necessary role in giving the
army something to do when the troops aren't
desperately fighting someone else.

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