Last night I watched a woman fierily—though not convincingly, of course—argue that, upon entering the army, the individual signs away his or her rights to be an individual. While this may be true in the sense that the army and the furthering of its goals and duties ought to become that individual's priority, it is entirely untrue that the same individual loses or ought to lose his identity.
Individuality is not tantamount to identity. On the contrary, individuality is a much more dynamic and visible dimension that is a mere extension of a more unchanging identity. Being gay, lesbian, or any other [prefix]sexual is precisely a component of that identity, much to the chagrin of many religious leaders, and despite the erroneous thoughts of many across the country and the world who think that sexuality is a choice. Moreover, demanding that non-heterosexual members of the army keep their sexuality a secret or else they lose their job, is undue burden on them because there is no equivalent demand being made of heterosexual individuals. And, while the army may be primarily oriented around the goals it aims to accomplish, it is inevitably a social place, as well, and those social aspects are invaluable in humanizing soldiers to one another and thereby contributing to unit cohesion and bravery in times of distress.
Another argument I hear around, and especially by old coots in Congress, is that the aforementioned unit cohesion will suffer; that the fact that soldiers live in close quarters will be aggravated by someone's identifying him/herself as gay/lesbian. This, I find to be the most despicable and faulty argument. I find it faulty because it assumes that there is universal and overt bigotry in the armed forces, and, while I am not naïve enough to believe that the opposite is the case, I also do not fail to recognize that the feeling of comradeship and allegiance to their duty, as well as the shared experiences of the soldiers concerned, create a respect for human life and a regard for one another that overrides their apprehensions about a 'homosexual' in their midst.
At the same time, I find this argument despicable and disgusting because it is a masked reiteration of the 'gays want to do any guy around' argument. I use the male substantives here, because they are more often than their female counterparts accused of promiscuity, of inability to control their hormones and sexual urges, and of an indiscriminate desire to sleep with men. In other words, it equates gays to bum sex. This is absolutely offensive to gays; naturally to the gay men suffering the detrimental effects of DADT, but also to every gay man in this country who has to sit in front of the television and hear elected officials such as McCain and à la McCain reduce them to an urge to sodomize any male around. It is a spit in the face of every gay individual who sees him/herself as a productive and equal member of this society and country of ours, but finds him/herself being regarded and portrayed unidimensionally as an unnatural, aberrant mutant worthy of the bigotry and stigma s/he gets in our society at large, or even legitimately through the enforcement of anachronistic and bigoted legislation like DADT.
Too much money has been wasted schooling and training individuals, only to then undertake measures to remove them from the position for which they were trained, once their homosexuality has become known. It has been going on for seventeen years too many and it is high time that our elected officials vote in accordance with the times in which we live and with the gaping need for new recruitment in our armed forces. And although it may be too late for those perpetuating the aforementioned tired arguments like John McCain, others in his party and among the Democrats can still be on the progressive, sensible, good side of history and vote to repeal DADT on Saturday.
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