First, I totally support the gay rights movement. Mostly because I am part of a quickly dying group that believes free citizens should be allowed to do whatever they want, as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else. Before you support that view, you have to realize all that entails. Prostitution, drugs, suicide, are all acts that do not have a victim besides the perpetrators. Does that mean I support all of these? No, but I don't think we should legislate against it. Even though I would be horrified if someone I cared about became a prostitute, or got hooked on hard drugs, or wanted to kill themselves, I feel that the proper response is to convince them out of the situation, not send the law after them. A part of our freedoms should also be the freedom to destroy your own life.
Now does that mean I think being gay destroys your life? Not at all. I have seen no evidence that it causes any harm, other than the harm self righteous people cause them by attacking them. I know the argument is still out whether being gay is something you're born with. But until it is solved, I would rather take the safe bet that it isn't a choice and support the people in that situation rather than the worst case scenario of banking on it being a choice, and harassing someone with a genetic predisposition to it.
So with that out of the way, on to the actual topic. I do support having gays in the military, with a caveat. I do not think that being gay makes you a good fit for being in an infantry unit. Now just in case I haven't pissed you off yet, I'd like to add I don't think women in an infantry unit is a good fit either. NOW everyone should be good and angry, but try and hear me out on this.
Why infantry units specifically? Because the way they are forced to operate, they cannot make the proper accommodations for women or gays. What accommodations would that be? For starters, the living situation. Being deployed in the military is not like having a regular job. You don't have to live with your coworkers, shower with them, sleep next to them, etc. With women in non-infantry units, they have separate living quarters and separate bathrooms and showers. If you gave 100 military leaders the option for separate living quarters or co-ed living quarters, I would bet on at least 90+ of them picking separate. That helps prevent a lot of drama. Not all, but a lot. But, for the most part, deployed infantry does not have that choice. Everyone will have to live together. Bathrooms have to be shared. Showers have to be shared. They do not have the freedom to split this stuff up like other units do. That means excess drama in the exact place we need the least.
Now someone out there is probably thinking "omg! Just because a gay guy sees you naked does NOT mean they will fall in love with you. Get over yourself". First, hypothetical person, I'm a beautiful man. I guarantee they would. Second, could you imagine telling this to a woman? "Hey LCpl Roberts, you can jump in the shower with all those guys. Don't bitch about it, it's not like they are all just going to fall in love with you because you're naked. If you want to shower you'll just have to deal with it!". If that ever happened we'd see it on the evening news and a bunch of feminists would be rightfully pissed. It wouldn't bother me a gay guy seeing me shower, but I can't extend that to everyone and act like they are wrong for being uncomfortable. I have met women who wouldn't be slightly bothered by showering with a bunch of men, does that mean we should force all women to not have separate showers? I think not.
Beyond the logistical issues, there is also how we want this unit to cooperate. There is a certain brotherhood that comes from having an all male unit. Not necessarily a good thing. If you are a guy and want to imagine it, think about locker room shenanigans back in high school. Now imagine that being your entire life for 6-12 months. I see you are disgusted, and rightfully so. That is not a good environment for civilized people, but when you are sending men to kill and die, it is probably the best one you can ask for. How would gays and women effect that? In my opinion, significantly. In these all male groups, problems can and often are solved with violence. That sounds like a bad thing, but it works. Instead of two guys hating each other and undermining each other for months like I have often seen happen in the real world, they can duke it out and be over it in minutes. I've seen guys beat the hell out of each other and be best friends before they even stopped bleeding. But add in a woman to that equation. Now one of them lost a fight, and lost it with a woman he may have fancied watching. That wound is not going to heal. Not to mention, seeing a woman being injured in combat would be particularly devastating. Seeing a dead man hurts the soul. A dead woman destroys it. I know it likely isn't politically correct, but seeing a dead woman or dead child in Iraq tore us apart, while we got mostly used to seeing dead men. I couldn't imagine how badly an infantry unit would be affected if a female in the unit was killed.
Sexual relationships are something that isn't a problem within an infantry squad (for the most part). Anyone reading this can probably think of one, two, a dozen times a group became totally screwed up due to a relationship interfering. Even the Beatles didn't survive that. That is trouble an infantry unit cannot afford to deal with, and it would happen a lot. You are talking about a bunch of late teens, early 20s people with raging hormones and no real adult supervision. In my wife's postal unit in the USMC, there was 10 women and 5 were pregnant, most of those by fellow Marines. Those numbers would be even more disastrous in an infantry unit when they are spending practically every waking moment together. So now you have unit cohesion falling apart because love triangles are developing, others have broken up and now hate each other, people competing for love interests and hating each other for the competition. This chaos will definitely effect unit performance, and can easily lead to service people being killed. Or mistakes made where others are wrongfully killed.
To be clear, I totally believe there is women and gays more than tough enough to do the job. I just think the trade off with losing unit cohesion does not make it a beneficial situation. Now, will it break my heart if women and gays were thrown into infantry units and they were forced to deal with the changes in how the unit works together? Not at all. Maybe they will find a solution that I cannot think of to make it all work. But, I would rather we figure it out first before wrecking the abilities of our infantrymen and putting them in more harm than usual. Political correctness needs to take a back seat to unit effectiveness in this case.
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