Don't ask, don't tell...

by: Eric B.

Sun Feb 07, 2010 at 00:51:19 AM EST

I remember one of the most heated arguments I ever got into in college. It was the editorial board of the CMU student newspaper's position on homosexuals serving openly in the military.  I took the unpopular position that homosexuals should be allowed to serve, and then a year or so later a funny thing happened ... I actually entered military service.

Yes, I know, here things were put to a real test.  And, here are the results:

It just didn't matter.

That is, it turns out that there were a hell of a lot more important things that demanded my attention. I showered in a berthing compartment of 200 people, but during the time between waking and going on watch or to general quarters, it never crossed my mind whether someone was watching me shower with lacivious intent. It just didn't matter. And, it frankly didn't appear to matter to anyone else.  There were guys who everyone knew to be homosexuals, but nobody really cared beyond making snide remarks in the same way people make snide remarks about everyone who isn't exactly like them. Why is this? When you're waking up from a couple hours sleep you snatched in between standing watches and doing maintenance and cleaning and painting and eating and exercising and maybe even catching a movie or two, you just had more pressing things on your mind than what someone else was doing. Contrary to what I'd been told, the mere thought that someone in the berthing area might be gay didn't damage morale, because no one had the time or energy to think about it.

I bring this up because of Frank Rich's column about this last week's semi-stunning acknowledgment on the part of the Joint Chiefs that it is time to junk Don't Ask, Don't Tell.  It is not surprising to me, because good military officers are first and foremost concerned with excellent exection of mission and second concerned with irrelevant bullshit. This paragraph, I thought, was incredible:

The more bigotry pushed out of the closet for all voters to see, the more likely it is that Americans will be moved to grant overdue full citizenship to gay Americans. It won’t happen overnight, any more than full civil rights for African-Americans immediately followed Truman’s desegregation of the armed forces. But there can be no doubt that Mike Mullen’s powerful act of conscience last week, just as we marked the 50th anniversary of the Greensboro, N.C., lunch counter sit-in, pushed history forward. The revealing silence that followed from so many of the usual suspects was pretty golden too.

Right ... end this. And, while we're at it, perhaps it's time for Michigan to rethink its constitutional amendment defining marriage ... passed to provide one ideology and one political party a short-term advantage at the ballot box. How much damage is it doing our military to reject the service of Americans who wish to defend it; how much damage is it doing the state of Michigan to hang a sign on its front door reading, "Queers ain't welcome here."