Gays in the Miliatry part 3 (whereupon I get my ass royally kicked in a logic fight)

Ok.
So I just got my ass handed to me.
Good job Scott.

A few minor points however.
First Scotts point.

But if you look at the original post, it has nothing to do with unit
cohesion, but is instead looking at how feminist theory about how straight men
might treat women can be used to say that straight men shouldn't’t be subjected to
being leered at either. But a woman (or a man) can sue over the creation of
sexist, hostile work conditions without showing that it has created a
degradation of unit cohesion. In fact, even if an employer could show that his
workers were generally more unified because they picked on the outcast gender,
the sexist, hostile work place would still be actionable. One might also note
that “unit cohesion” may not even be a particularly important goal in a company.
It is entirely possible that individuality and competition between people at the
company could be actively encouraged; however, even in that environment, a
sexist, hostile work place would still get the company in hot water. So when we
look at RMM’s first post and compare it to his second, we can see that there is
a fundamental shift in the reasoning concerning why out gays shouldn't be
allowed in the military. First, it’s because it is unethical in the same way
subjecting women to hostile work places is unethical, but later, it’s because
unit cohesion might suffer. Now, I’m not going to say that RMM’s shifting
reasons betrays his forgone conclusion, that the reasons are secondary to the
conclusion that gays shouldn’t be in the military, but I’m not going to say that
isn’t happening either. I’m suspicious of people who claim they believe
something for one reason but when that reason is shown to be invalid then claim
an entirely different reason for acting or believing something. Still, his new
arguments aren’t entirely without merit, so let’s look at ‘em.

There's a reason my thoughts have shifted over the course of our discussion Scott, one I'm not surprised you're unused too. You have been changing my mind about many things. As my mind has changed so has my perspective. Gays in the military isn't a subject I have researched or thought much about prior to our conversation. Nor am I an academic. Most of my posts are simply reflective of my reasoning at that time. Plus I'm a little nuts.

OK, I think the first thing we should note is that while RMM can’t find any
evidence to support his position that open gays will hurt the military, there is
evidence that keeping open gays out hurts the military. They’ve lost money and
manpower because of the ban. No doubt about it. Further, there is significant
evidence suggesting that the ban has been used to hurt morale and unit cohesion.
A study of Canada’s military found that in the three years after they dropped
their ban, sexual harassment against women dropped 46%. Speculation was that the
harassers used the threat of calling a woman a lesbian against her to strengthen
their ability to harass, but once there was no fear of losing her job for being
called a lesbian, women were more able to stand up to the harassers.
Second,
the British did investigate. As did Canada. So did South Africa. As have all
militaries that allowed open gays in. The methods they used seem to satisfy
them, so why aren’t the methods used by professionals in the military adequate
for RMM? Beats me. But what we can note is that he feels that the absence of
evidence of problems created by letting gays in somehow trumps the actual
evidence from multiple sources that banning gays is hurting the military. How
does non-evidence beat out evidence? And may I point out that anyone who demands
evidence to make a change and then suggests that there may not be any evidence
out there is probably sticking to his stance due to faith, not
rationality?
RMM’s next argument goes like this:

Its not so much that I felt the absence of evidence trumps evidence. Its that I didnt realise how much evidence there was.

And it is true that Scott did mention “anecdotal evidence,” but he did not say
that it was true. More importantly, Scott knows that how rape tends to happen
with women and how it happens with men is something very different. First, let’s
take a look at the FBI’s
reports and we’ll see that women are raped or threatened with rape 13 times
more than men are. Only 0.03% of men are raped or even threatened with rape in a
year, and this includes rapes and threats of rape by women. So let’s not pretend
that the threat of rape for men is particularly similar to the threat of rape
for women. Second, women tend to be attacked by people they are close to, but
men tend to be attacked by strangers; therefore, it would seem that increasing
the number of men that women are involved with would increase their chances of
being attacked, but logic would suggest that it would decrease the chances for a
man. Third, women are more likely to be attacked in their homes, but men were
less likely to be attacked in their homes. Again, it would seem that having
women live with more men would increase the probability of women being attacked
but having a man live with more people would decrease the probability of being
attacked. If RMM’s supposition were true, we’d expect to see people in other
professions who have an unusual degree of intimacy and allow gays within the
profession would be disproportionately attacked, for instance, professional
athletes, police men, and fire fighters. Anyone ever heard of the scourge of
firehouse rapes? I haven’t either.
RMM’s next tactic is to say:

Good point. I hadn't thought the implications through to Police Officers or Firemen. However I would point as "male rape" is the "most under reported crime of all" comparing the incidences of male to female rape is not valid. I'm not arguing what the statistics show mind you, just pointing out that since we both agree the Male stat is flawed, it cant be accurately compared.

It is true that male rape is extraordinarily underreported even outside of
prisons. IIRC, it is the most underreported of all violent crimes, so
underreported that getting statistical data on it is really difficult. However,
some things do seem to have come clear. First, the majority of people who rape
men are self-described straight men. That means that even if you think these
rapists are gay, they wouldn’t be kept out of the military under Don’t Ask,
Don’t Tell because they don’t think they are gay. Even if you asked them, they
wouldn’t tell you there were gay. Second, while there is no evidence to suggest
that gay men are more likely to rape, there is evidence to suggest that they are
more likely to be raped. RMM is typically afraid that gay men will be raping
straight men, but the data suggests the opposite. Now, one could argue that
having those gay men being raped in the military is also bad so gays should be
kept out for their own sake, but other groups, notably women, have been
subjected to a disproportionate number of attacks, but we allow them to decide
if they are willing to join, so I’m not sure why gay men, who are statistically
far less likely to be sexually assaulted than women, shouldn’t be allowed in the
military. To compound that, given that gay men are more likely to be raped, but
would also be more afraid to report rapes for fear that their sexual orientation
would be exposed, mightn’t allowing gays the freedom to serve without being
fired decrease the number of rapes in the military as gay men felt more free to
point out the rapists and rapists would know they were more likely to be caught?
Remember the experience with the women in the Canadian forces? Couldn’t
something like that be happening to men? Finally, let’s note that DADT allows
gays to be in the military. It only keeps open gays out of the military. While
there is evidence to suggest that more gays would join the military if they
could serve without the threat of firing, I somehow doubt that it is open gays,
many of whom would be lesbians, who are the real threat of rape compared to the
straight guys and the closeted gays. And let’s not forget that the Canadian
experience suggests that there might be less sexual harassment of women and
probably gay men if gays could serve openly.
RMM’s next line of reasoning is
a lulu!

I have to disagree with some of your labels, but the reasoning is sound. I would point out that any man who rapes a man is not straight, but I agree that they would not identify themselves as gay, so your point is essentially correct. However I do wonder about your certainty that "gay males" are less likely to rape. Could you be more explicit? Do you mean on a proportional basis? I cant think of any reason why that would be so. WHy don't gay men commit rape at the same rate as straight men? Is it that the victim is more likely to be at an more equal physical level?

So here RMM is suggesting that the problem with allowing gays in the
military is that people aren’t willing to be critical of gays unless they have
some personal motivation. Take a big gulp of that and wash it around your mouth
for a while. Oh, don’t swallow it, but let the bitter taste of that steep for a
moment before you do your spit take. RMM doesn’t believe there would be people
willing to expose homosexual rapists. He doesn’t think that there would be
people willing to use an increase in homosexual rape for political advantage. So
now I have to wonder if RMM put absolutely no thought into that or if he lives
in Candy Land, yummy, sweet, sweet Candy Land where gay people aren’t
scapegoated by politicians and no one is willing to believe the worst about
faggots. Can anyone really imagine a scenario where a military did a report and
found that its soldiers were being raped and no one would think to use that for
political advantage against … oh, let’s say the party that voted to let gays in
the military or against gays themselves to strengthen a conservative party’s
hold on a homophobic population? To put it plainly, not only have people used
actual evidence about gays against political parties or against gays, conniving
politicians have used rumor, innuendo, myth, and lies about homosexuals to
attack political parties and homosexuals. So even in our wildest imaginings, can
any of us conceive of the possibility that a study that found that gays were
raping soldiers and ruining the military would not at least be leaked to
conservative talk shows? OK, now that we agree that of course these studies
would be made public, can we think again about how the world militaries have
been studying the influence of openly gay soldiers and no one has found a study
that says they are ruining the military?

Yes scott Actually I can imagine a situation like that. Easily. You seem to disregard the power of a popular position. You yourself have pointed out that many will continue to believe the theory, instead of the evidence, because the theory is popular, or because it fits into the way they see the world. (feminists and porn) yet don't think the same could apply here? Can you really not see a government, particularly a conservative government, fearing that to publicise such a report, would make them look like the homophobic fools they are accused of being? More to the point are you honestly saying there aren't those who would intentionally suppress such a report, because the results differ from their views? My point in regard to Britain still stands. In many of these countries it is ILLEGAL to engage in "Hate speech" and what that entails is very loosely defined. As I mentioned simply expressing ones opinion, whether right or wrong, can cause legal penalties if they are not of the approved sentiment. My point was that in order for such laws to be passed in the first place, the sentiment must exist in the culture before hand. From my own personal experiences, Britian (which was the only country I was making this point about as I have been there) is overwhelmingly "gay-friendly"if such a study were published, most would simply dismiss or ignore it. Id also point out you assume there is a political benefit to "gay bashing" while that is true in some cases and places, its not always so. In many places "gay-bashing" or even the perception of it has a heavy political cost from what I can see.

I’m not convinced I’ve ever seen evidence that the early integrated black
kids were handpicked to help prove that integration was correct, but I could at
least see how it could be done. I can see how a school board might request that
teachers or school administrators send the records of their students or the
board could ask for recommendations of the top students to integrate, and then
the board could examine the potential students and select some to go to white
schools. But how would this work for gays getting to the military? Does RMM
believe there is some elected or appointed (by whom???) board of homosexuals who
would examine the gays trying to enter the military? And what would this
mythical board use to determine which gays to allow in? As RMM noted, the
records for gay rapists are virtually unknown as the crime is almost never
reported. Would gay men volunteer the information that they are rapists or
harassers? Or is there an investigating wing of this secret, gay, shadow
government that collects information on us and has files filed with pictures of
our old tricks and disgruntled acquaintances? Who funds this group? Where do
they meet and how well is it decorated? How do they enforce their edicts? I’ve
heard gay conspiracy theories before, but a secret organization that we use to
self-police ourselves into being good? If we had that, wouldn’t we in fact be
far better citizens than straight people? And given that many countries have
allowed open homosexuals in their ranks far longer than most serve in the
military (e.g. Canada has allowed open gays for 14 years), doesn’t the “holding
themselves to a standard of conduct they can not sustain over the long term”
seem somewhat less than like? What’s extra funny about this for gay people is
the idea that we as a collective group could possibly be this regimented. We
can’t even agree that there should be a military, let alone who should be in it.
There are factious splinter groups over what causes AIDS, if gay marriage should
be supported or if all marriage should be destroyed, whether or not integration
into straight society is a good thing, what if anything the role of religion
should play in gay life, if drag queens should strive to appear real or to be
funny, etc. Do you know how many times gay leather clubs split up over something
inane? But RMM thinks it’s possible that we’ve gotten together to decide who
will and who won’t get into the military. If we were that focused and organized,
not only would we have been able to get into the US military by now, we’d
probably have invaded Poland.

Scott, I'm not positing the existence of a "gay council" Nor was I assuming a monolithic viewpoint. I was simply pointing out, that those gays who are in the military realise that their existence is being debated, and would, by their interactions with other gays, set a standard of conduct. Lets say your were in the Army, and you say another man you knew to be gay, using his rank to try and extort sexual favors from a subordinate. Isn't it likely that you would attempt to deal with him unofficially so as not to cast a pall on all gays, rather than going through official channels. That is to say, wouldn't you be concerned that by reporting him, it would create fuel for those trying to remove you? Perhaps even find a way to have him drummed out for charges that had nothing to do with his sexuality?
I think its a difference of perspective, when I said self policing, you thought of some form of official body with rules and regs, I was talking about the patterns that emerge from the individual interactions of a group (gays in the military) who share basic fears, concerns, threats etc. I would assume the vast bulk of those serving openly, would want to ensure they did not "let down the team" for fear that many would judge all by their example.
However that being said, I hadn't realised that Canada passed this law fourteen years ago. I, for some reason, thought it was four.

The funny thing about this argument is that it rarely pops up except when we are
dealing with gays. The military has made innumerable changes. It has allowed
women in. It integrated blacks. We went from the Founding Fathers being
terrified by the idea of standing army to being terrified by the idea of not
having the world’s most powerful standing army. We never had a draft until the
Civil War. We’ve altered tactics, recruiting methods, uniforms, training
methods, the placement of military bases, our commitments to international
policing, our policies of engagement, and the tools we give the military. We are
so concerned about erring to side of caution when considering changes that might
have negative effects that we keep open homosexuals out of the military but give
the military nuclear weapons. Logic would seem to dictate that anyone who uses
an imagined secret gay military review board as a reason to keep gays out of the
military is not using logic as a dictate. RMM is correct that I am for caution,
but I’m certainly not for irrational paralysis.

I would point out that the "imagined secret review board" was your own interpretation. What I was thinking of is closer to market theory.

If RMM had done a little research,
he’d have found that his concerns were already examined and found to be
groundless. For instance, although several people said they would quit the
Australian military if allowed open gays, the reality was that when it happened.
so few quit that the number was negligible. Moreover, nations who changed their
policies did not find that recruitment was hurt. When presented with compelling
reasons, RMM doesn’t change his mind, he changes the compelling reasons into
something that is not compelling without any evidence to support his change. He
assumes that this baseless reasoning must be superior to the researched
conclusions of professionals in the field. Usually, we call that certainty of
one’s correctness despite contrary facts “bigotry,” not “logic” or “reason.”

Scott what do you call this entire conversation if not research? Some people read scholarly works, Some people just argue with those people until they are presented with the facts they want to know. The best way to learn an argument for something is to argue against it I have found. I wanted to learn what the case was for allowing gays to serve openly, so I marshalled the best argument I could think of against it.

Fortunately, we don’t have to bow to bigotry because all evidence suggests
that it is working to harm the greater good. In addition to the GAO study
mentioned above and the Canadian study on sexual harassment, there are a
significant number of military researchers who are suggesting the military ban
on open homosexuals is undercutting how people feel about the military. Because
most people believe gays should be allowed to serve openly, they are more likely
to see the military and an organization with values that they have trouble
supporting. Military experts refer to it as a “gap” like we used to refer to the
“generation gap.” And they worry about it. There are several dangers to having a
gap in values between a powerful military and a powerful populace.

I think this is possibly one of your two best arguments. Could you, (or did you already) point those studies out to me. The "gap" studies I mean.

The U.S. may no be as tolerant of homosexuality as some nations of Europe,
but I have trouble imaging the kind of violence and protest met by homosexuals
in Israel appearing in even the most conservative and homophobic cities in the
U.S. today. But Israel is able to include open homosexuals without problems. If
RMM were gay, he might be aware that not all nations of Europe are as tolerant
as the Britain. Italy, Poland, and Greece (ironically) are all a bit behind and
all have gays in their militaries. And finally, RMM ignores that U.S. soldiers
have already served with out gays from other nations when they worked with NATO,
the UN, and NORAD without significant incident.

SO conservative equals homophobia?

Again, I can’t help but to notice how the fear of being sexually harassed
by homosexuals is being overplayed as if it was homosexuals harassing straight
guys that has been the problem and not the reverse. As for a solution to this
problem, well, if kicking out gay harassers helps to keep harassment from
happening, then it seems that the proper thing to do would be to keep out
straight harassers, not to keep open gays out of the military. And let’s remind
ourselves that incidents of sexual harassment dropped significantly in the
Canadian military when gays were allowed to serve openly, the opposite of what
RMM fears would happen

Scott I get the point your making, but I am very troubled by this "aura of sinlessness" you seem to think homosexuality confers. Homosexuals dont harass straight guys? I lived on south beach for years, and gays are no less likely to harras a man, than a straight guy is to harass a woman. There is just as high a percentage of idiots who dont understand what "no" means on your side of the rainbow as mine, to think otherwise is simply ludicrous.

Canada and Australia removed their bans 15 years ago. Israel 14 years ago. South
Africa 12. Great Britain 8. All of these are much longer than most people are in
the military. How can it possibly be true that with a collective 49 years worth
of experience from just these 4 nations, ignoring that virtually all militaries
in Europe have allowed open homosexuals in the military since 2000, that not
enough time as passed? Surely, this is enough time, considering that all of them
come to same conclusion. What other military decision waited for more than the
15 years that we’ve been able to study Canada and Australia? We didn’t wait that
long to decide to build the atomic bomb.
I’m all for caution, but what RMM is
suggesting is more like cowardice, paralysis, and paranoia. We are braver, more
innovative, and more rational than RMM is giving us credit for. If the greatest
nation on earth can’t accomplish what South Africa has with it’s contemptible
and recent past, something is seriously wrong.

Like I said I actually wasnt aware that it was 15 years. I was under the impression these policies had only been in place since around 2000 or so.
I will say though that comparing the development of a weapon during a time of war (and one we werent really sure we could win) and a social change is simply not apt.

I do apreciate the discussion we have been having Scott, even if you did seem pretty quick to pull the bigotry gun. I have never claimed to have the sum of all knowledge, and a incorrect predicate can lead to the same conclusions as bigotry very easily. Other than that though, (and I must admit it was quite entertaining to see you acting like a real feminist for once) it was quite illuminating. My final suggestion is that you should seriously reexamine a few assumptions you seem to have.
1) that gays are somehow "better" in that they dont ever try to force themselves.
2) Conservative = Homophobia. (I mean come on I thought you were better than that)
3) dont asume that self selecting has to mean "intentional organised effort"

There are many ways people can and do unconciously self elect, and it requires no cooperation, planning, or aforethought.