Gays in the Millitary, Pt 2

Mad Thinker Scott has recently responded to my first post on the subject of gays in the military, and while I think he has some good points, I also think theres a few he seems to be missing.

First of all I beleive he misinterperted what I meant by "uncomfortable" according to his opening parpagraph.

First, let me say that I am not unsympathetic to this argument. I get that it could be awkward and creepy for some straight guys to be in the shower or a bed with a gay man, but in the final analysis, this line of reasoning misses what is really at issue because it makes a number of assumptions that just don’t hold up. While it is true that we would never impose on the average woman in her workplace the duty to shower, sleep, and billet with a straight guy, it is also true, as everyone who argues against having gays in the military repeats ad nauseam, that the military is not like the average workplace, and we don’t want it to be. The criteria we use to decide if something should be done in the military are radically different and should be radically different than what we use in the average workplace.
For instance, in the military, “does this make the soldier uncomfortable?” is not nearly as important a question as “does this make the unit more or less effective?” We might forbid the average workplace from subjecting a woman to sexism that created a hostile work environment for her, but we might demand that a woman in the military subject herself to a sexist environment (e.g. an area controlled by sharia law) that is without a doubt a hostile work environment. There are all sorts of things that we might expect a woman to endure in the military that she should not have to endure in the average workplace, e.g. being struck by her superior, being deprived of common freedoms, no access to the regular legal system, etc. She might be forced to do something that is essentially suicidal for the good of the nation. And that’s the way it should be.

I should have been more specific when I said "uncomfortable", that was a error on my part. I had thought it would be assumed, but should have made it explicit that I meant uncomfortable not in the general sense of minor discomfort, but in the extreme sense of "uncomfortable enough to degrade unit cohesion" His point that members of the military are required to bear great discomfort for the sake of the nation is both well taken and accurate, however in order for the military to function, troops must trust each other explicitly. Loyalty to the members of ones own unit or a lack thereof, can be the deciding factor between a unit which accomplishes its mission and one which doesn't. Scott is absolutely correct in reframing the question from one of "comfort" to one of effectiveness, yet in doing so doesnt seem to consider the effect a lack of trust, or distrust in the motives of ones peers can have on effectivness. He then goes on to mention some of the anecdotal evidence which suggests that closer integration among the sexes can lead to problem behaviors, yet also doesnt seem to consider that many of those behaviors are just as possible among same sex yet differently orientated troops.

I’m not familiar with all the research done by the military that made them come to the conclusion that putting men and women together would be counterproductive, but I have seen some anecdotal evidence of increases in pregnancies, rape and sexual harassment that might suggest that it would be better for the sexes to stay separate. (Please note that these are behaviors the military is worried about, not expected sexual feelings.) Given that there is no substantive campaign to move women into men’s barracks, it may be that that anecdotal evidence is enough to keep the sexes separate. RMM’s question comes close to being what the real question should be, but it doesn’t quite make it because it doesn’t look at what the military has discovered about having gays in the military. The real question should be this:

Multiple studies (see here, here, here, and ever so many here) have found that they can’t justify segregating gay men from the military because evidence shows that including gay men hasn't hindered any military in the world, but excluding gay men may be harming ours. Why isn’t this idea applied to homosexuals?

And here is where we begin to disagree, as is well known "an absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" Scott claims that the evidence shows that including gay men hasn't hurt the millitary, when in fact all hes shown is that as yet there is no evidence that it has. Its a minor point, yes, but one which I beleive is important. Understand, I accept Scott's contention that there is little to no evidence that including gays in the British army has damaged its capabillities, and I am not disputing that, my question is, if it were doing so, could we expect to see evidence of it, and if so what evidence could we expect to see?

Scott mentions that based on the anecdotal evidence billeting men and women together would seem to lead to an increase of rapes, pregnancies, and sexual harrasment, which would make it undesirable. My question is, assuming that the same negative potentialities exist vis a vis gays in the millitary (and I see no reason why it would be an illogical assumption, Homosexuals are no more inherantly noble than straight men), how aware would the army, or the public be?

Obviously pregnancy is not a consideration among men, but what of the other two? That is to say if there was an increase in incidences of homosexual rape or sexual harrasment, would we expect that to lead to an increase in the reporting of such, or would it be expressed by an invisible corrosion in morale? Given what I know of men in general, and of military men in particular I would expect the second to be more likely.

In other words even if homosexual rape in the Military increased by a significant factor, I wouldn't expect reported instances of such to increase much if at all. Why do I believe this to be the case? Primarily due to the lack of reported homosexual rapes in federal prisons. According to the National Institute of Justice, less than .oo5% of all inmates report being raped to the authorities, yet anyone with even the slightest knowledge of prison knows that the incidences of prison rape are far higher. Whats important here isn't how many happen, or the very different circumstances between men in prison and men in the military, but the reticence of men to report being sexually victimised. This is not a trend I would expect to reversed among military men, in point of fact I would expect this trend to be even more acute among them. Soldiers are, almost by definition, men who place great value in their masculinity. For them to admit to being victimised by another man sexually would be simply unthinkable for most. I also see no reason that this would not hold true for sexual harrasment and other non violent offenses as well.

The concern as to whether any trouble caused by allowing openly gay men and women to serve in the millitary would be appararent before it began to errode effectiveness is further complicated by the concern that even if such evidence were to come to light, I am unsure as to whether or not we could reasonably expect the governments in question to admit to it. I am not posittng any "gay friendly conspiracy". However we must recognise that it is a trend among governments and politicans not to admit the negative effects of a policy, no matter how apparent they might be, unless by doing so one can gain an advantage over ones opponents.

Given the substansially greater social acceptance of gays in the nations which have allowed homosexuals to serve openly, and the trend for anyone criticising policies relating to gays to be accused of homophobia, I dont see much advantage in making such problems public, and in fact can envision circumstances in which such a revelation would be damaging to the "whistleblowers" public carreer.

As an example if David Cameron were to present evidence that male on male rape has increased in the british military since the year 2000, and that it was degrading unit effectiveness, is it more likely that it would be seen as a concerned leader examining a problem or that it would be seen as a homophobic reaction? Given that this is the same populace that feels perfectly justified in placing those who express "anti-gay" (which includes statments of personal uncomfortability with homosexuality) comments in public on police watch lists, I can not logically see a scenario in which the former is more likely than the latter.

Finally, we must also recognise that even if there has been no increase in incidences of homosexual victimisation it is possible that this is due to a "I dont want to let the team down" philosophy. That is to say that its quite possible homosexuals in those militaries who have allowed them to serve openly are intentionally modifying thier behavior in order to allow homosexuals overall to "put their best foot forward" and holding themselves to a standard of conduct they can not sustain over the long term. Just as those Black children who first attended desegregated schoold in the south were by and large the most intelligent and well behaved children available in the community so as to ensure that desegregation provided no evidence for the charge that blacks were "inferior" its possible that the homosexual community is ensuring that only the best behaved among them are serving openly so as to ensure there is no evidence that allowing such will cause a problem.

Now I am not contending that any of these things are happening, merely pointing out that even if they were, we would not expect them to be visible within the type of reports that Scott is citing, and that as such, those reports do little to prove that the presence of openly gay service members is not hurting military effectiveness. Furthermore I think both Scott and I would agree that given the nature of the military, and its missions, it is not unreasonable to err on the side of caution when condsidering a change in policy would could have a hard to identify negative trend.

We also have to recognise that for the US military in particular, the idea of hidden resentment, and a lack of unit cohesion is not a theoretical problem but one which has led to a concrete problem for the military in the relatively recent past. US military leadership still shudders at the memory of Vietnam, in large part due to the high numbers of inter-unit killings, and the corrosive and contagious effect of the overall lack of morale during that conflict. I am not implying that allowing openly gay members should, would, or does, have anywhere near the effect on morale as having a large number of conscripted soldiers serving in an unpopular conflict (I dont beleive it does or even comes close). I am simply pointing out that the US military is more aware of the pernicious effects of low morale and a lack cohesion than most. I also dont think its a stretch to assume that soldiers preying upon fellow soldiers sexually would lead to low morale or a lack of unit cohesion.


On the other hand the benefits of allowing openly gay men and women to serve in the military are not as clear cut as they might at first seem. Scott posted this article which places the cost of firing and replacing gay servicemembers who violate DADT at around 364 million over ten years, and this one which states that the US Military could attract up to an additional 41,000 enlistees by repealing the ban, both of which present compelling arguments. I have no doubt that saving over 36 million dollars a year would be positive, nor am I denying that an additional 41,000 soldiers would be most welcome given current curcumstnaces.

My question however is whether these would be net benefits. That is to say would the additional 41,000 soldiers be greater than the number of men or women who would choose not to enlist due to the presence of openly gay men and women and would the money saved on retraining gay soldiers who violate DADT be greater than the funds spent retraining those service members who quit due to the repeal of said policy?

One thing Both Scott and I agree upon is this,

I think I speak for most gay people when I say that if our inclusion as out gay people really hurt the military, we would support the ban on out gays in the military because military effectiveness, with enormously important goals and people’s lives on the line, is more important than our feelings.

The most imprtant thing is not how people feel about the policy, but whether or not the policy as it exists is better for the militaries effectiveness than an alternative policy. The problem I have is twofold,
1) The way people feel about thier fellow soldiers, especially those in thier unit, has a direct effect on military effectiveness. By the same token the way people feel about the military has a direct effect on their recruiting efforts. While bigotry is not somehting I am in the habit of supporting or endorsing, I think both Scott and I would agree that if enough people were bigoted against gays that allowing them to serve openly would cause a net reduction in recruiting, then in this one isntance we would bow to that bigotry for the sake of the greater good. I personally dont beleive that this would be the case, as I dont beleive the average american is that bigoted and it doesnt seem this has happened in other countries, but it also must be recognised that britain, and europe in general is far more tolerant of homosexuality than the US is.

2) I see no way to accurately predict or even measure, whether changing DODT would bring any meaningful benefit/penalty.

While Scott seems to be satisfied with a lack of evidence that allowing gays in the military is causing problems, I would prefer to see evidence that its not casuing problems. I am not unsympathetic to Scott's position that unless evidence of a problem is shown, it is reasonable to assume that none exists, but I disagree for the reasons explained above. Unfortunately, I also can not formulate a standard of evidence that could be reasonable used to prove that this policy isn't casuing problems. While the best indicator of whether or not its causing a problem would probably be an anonymous poll of military members, the only ones I have seen thus far have had too small a sample size to draw any concrete conclusions from.

Without the abillity to accurately gauge the risk of changing policies, or the abillity to accurately measure whether or not that risk is being realised, it becomes impossible to weigh the risk versus the expected reward in any rational manner. Many of the factors that would lead to a net loss are simply impossible to anticipate, and others can only be anticipated in the most general sense. More problamatic, we have to infer from other data whether or not those risks are being realised in militaries which have already instituted the poilicy we are discussing.

In addition, the policy we are considering changing, as a result of its very existence, actively prevents much of the behaviors we have established would have a negative effect on unit cohesiveness. That is to say the "Don't tell" part of DADT, makes the penalties for sexual harrasment so severe, and so much more likely to lead to a negative consequence for homosexuals than it does for heterosexuals, that in many ways it is DADT itself, which may be responsible for the lack of problems thus far. Its possible that DADT limits the problem behavior of homosexuals in such a way as to give straight sodliers a flase sense of comfot as things currently stand. In other words if a male commander sexually harrasses a female subordinate, he is far less likely to get in trouble or get kicked out of the military, even if the charge is proven to be true, than if a male commander is accused of sexually harrasing a male subordinate. Were DODT to be repealed however, this would no longer be the case, and as a result I would have to expect an increase in instances of male to male sexual harrasement, although not an increase in reports of such. This would have the effect of creating more friction and difficulty between homsexual and heterosexual members and thus reducing effectiveness.


The problem is, as I'm sure anyone who has read this entire entry can see, not so much the expectation of problems resulting from DADT, so much as the uncertainity as to whether or not any problems will occur or whether or not they already are. When coupled with the importance of the institution in question, and its well justified need for cohesion, logic would seem to dictate that only a truly compelling reason would justify a potentially dangerous change. Unless and untill those uncertanties can be illuminated, I simply cant find your arguments compelling enough to be a reason to change policies.

Or to put it another way Scott, while the experiences of those 24 militaries is a good start, it will require more evidence over a longer period of time before repealing DADT can really be considered rational.

One way to address this might be to institute a limited policy under which homosexual soldiers could come out, but upon doing so would be transferred to seperate "gay units" (god that sounds like a horrible pun but wasnt meant to be) similar to those Alexander of Macedonia was said to have formed. Men show valor in combat not so much because of great bravery but because they fear diminishing themselves in the eyes of their compatriots more than they fear the consequences of combat, by all accounts this trend was magnified when ones buddy was also ones husband.

However I just think we need a lot more datra before we can determine what the negative effects, if any, of openly gay men and women serving in integrated units with hetersexual men and women would be.