Sugar-High Elf asked what the problem would be with gay folks being in the military in this article. Rather than glom up her commentary with a long post I just decided to write a response.
The problem is not "gays in the military" as there are plenty already serving. The problem tends to come about when gays (particularly gay men) "come out" to their unit. I have seen this several times over many years and most of the time the scenario has been about the same. Guy comes out of the closet for whatever reason and the unit is largely accepting of the whole thing (these are Military Intelligence units not infantry or artillery folks mind you). Seems like a solid result right? Not exactly...
Most of the time this acceptance by the rest of the unit ends up resulting in a massive overcompensation by the gay man (in my personal experience anyway). I will use my friend and Language Olympic partner the Pokekorean as an example:
Pokekorean thought that people didn't know he was gay. He was wrong...very very wrong. Everyone but 2 or 3 very gullible females knew he was gay almost immediately (he squeezed their boobs once at party hence: "he has to be straight!"). He kept up a charade for a very long time (even believing that he had fooled me the whole time) right up until the unit was stoplossed and he was not able to leave the service when he was originally scheduled. He (correctly) assumed that this meant that they wouldn't be kicking him out for being gay and for all intents and purposes "came out" (there wasn't a formation or anything he just stopped pretending).
Unsurprisingly we were all very accepting since we knew anyway. We had several openly gay women in the unit and it had never been an issue. As time went on Pokekorean didn't just stop pretending to be straight but rather seemed to feel the need to push his homosexuality into the center of attention every chance he got. I understand that he felt repressed for a long time and this was only natural. The problem was that after about 6 or 7 months it crossed the line from being "openly gay" into full bore sexual harassment.
Specifically, my roommate and problem child Egregious was harassed mercilessly. Pokekorean thought that Egregious was a homophobe but the truth of the matter was that the man hated to be touched by anyone else regardless of gender (seriously, you have no idea how bad this phobia was for him).
Pokekorean was a friend of his and simply wouldn't leave him alone. Butt-grabbing, full on hugs out of nowehere, leaping of him and wrapping his legs around his waist, the occasional grab for the schlong... I am surprised Egregious didn't snap.
It didn't stop with Egregious either... Pokekorean walked all over the propriety line with many people. In fact if these things had been done by heterosexuals they likely would have been reported as a sexual harassment complaint. Problem was that no one wanted to call that wrath down on him since the unit Command was still largely unaware that he was gay (a couple officers knew). No one wanted to see him get in trouble for being openly gay just because of a few incidents.
This has happened in all but 2 of the cases of gay men coming out to the unit that I witnessed in the Army. Once "out" most of the guys couldn't stop at just "being themselves" but pushed and pushed until they were waaay over the line. The other 2 guys handled the whole thing with decorum and propriety. They were gay, they dated men, but weren't harassing heterosexual men.
Keep in mind that MI is extraordinarily tolerant of lifestyles of any nature. Homosexuality, drug use, witchcraft, horse porn, whatever you got... MI folks will usually tolerate it. this is NOT the reaction you get from combat arms troops or even many other support branches of the Army. Signal, quartermaster, transportation units and the like are basically just the opposite with the exception of drug and crime tolerance. Had Pokekorean been attached to an infantry platoon it is unlikely that his time in the Army would have been anything like the experience he had as an MI soldier.
Now I know some people will say that the sexual harassment regs already in place would curb this problem in a military with openly serving gay men. Wrong. In a similar fashion that it is almost impossible to bring a sexual harassment suit against a female soldier or a racial discrimination complaint against a black soldier yes I know both have been known to happen on very rare occasions) it would be even less likely that actual punishment of gay soldiers for sexual harassment would be allowed without massive flak from the ACLU, GLAAD, and other groups seeking to push other agendas.
The Army already has a huge problem with it's waning warrior culture and this would just add to the load.
Lastly the shower and habitation issues: One of the big reasons that there were less problems for the Pokekorean in our unit than he may have had in others was that our unit was a pogue unit. We didn't go to the field, we didn't live in communal barracks where soldiers are in the same room or using communal showers etc... were this the case I can guarantee that there would have been some soldiers who would have had major problems living or showering with the Pokekorean (even in tolerant MI).
Garrison units like ours are fairly able to accommodate gay soldiers without friction simply because these situations don't come up but this fades away in combat areas. Even in Iraq the females were and are showering in their own showers, living in their own segregated areas, and so on (there are exceptions but they are rare and short term for the most part... they also tend to have big issues compared to segregated sex housing)... This is already a big logistical headache and adding the equivalent of 2 more sexes to the mix would take it from a headache into the realm of the ridiculous. Add in the fact that many gay men and women wouldn't own up to the fact simply in order to shower and be naked around their sexually preferred folks. (Think I am being stupid and maligning homosexuals? How many men do you know who would jump at the opportunity to shower with women? Same impetus here.)
Pokekorean and most of the other gay soldiers I know served honorably and added to the Army as a whole but this equation tended to tilt the other direction after they were serving "openly" (only for males mostly). Furthermore while homosexuality may be acceptable to some sectors of the Army it definitely remains an issue that can and does cause outright violence in other sectors especially those sectors whose soldiers have to co-exist in far closer proximity than MI does.
Should gays be allowed to serve openly in my opinion? Yes, I think so and have thought so for some time but... Just because something "should be" philosophically, doesn't mean that it is actually feasible in reality. When civilian culture becomes totally accepting of gay lifestyles then the Army should and likely will follow suit. This was the case with women's equality and women in the Army and it will liekly have to follow the same progression.
Additionally we cannot allow another maxim to be added in this vein: "Women can't possibly sexually harass men, Blacks can't be racists, and Gays can't sexually harass heteros." This almost certainly would be the case if the current policy was overturned. There are literally thousands of ACLU lawyers who would leap to the defense of every gay guy who walked over the line like the Pokekorean did but didn't want to pay the piper for their actions. Even the Pokekorean probably would have lawyered up rather than taking responsibility (it pains me to say that, but personal accountability was never a strong suit of his).
Bottom line : If civilians in separate houses can't get along with gay men and women on a socially equal basis there is no chance of the military doing so.
