The failing “Don’t ask; Don’t tell” arguments
Mr. Owens tries to make an argument for keeping the “Don’t ask; Don’t tell” policy, but unfortunately, his theoretical arguments are refuted by both modern and ancient real-life examples.
The congressional findings supporting the 1993 law (section 654 of title 10, United States Code) reflect the common-sense observation that military organizations exist to win wars….
This they do by means of an ethos that stresses discipline, morale, good order and unit cohesion. Anything that threatens the nonsexual bonding that lies at the heart of unit cohesion adversely affects morale, disciple and good order, generating friction and undermining this ethos. Congress at the time and many today, including members of the military and members of Congress from both parties, believe that service by open homosexuals poses such a threat.
The one problem is that our military has been already dealing with such a threat: women. Unless Mr. Owens is also arguing that we should not allow women into military—or that if we do, they should be kept in a separate regiment or, if they are allowed into troops with men, then they should only have non-combat duties, like staying in kitchen—his argument that somehow openly gay men pose new threat to this non-sexual bonding isn’t convincing. Presence of women, in however small numbers, already ruined that, for whatever it’s worth. For the consistency’s sake, Mr. Owens needs to oppose presence of openly female women in the military, as well as openly gay men (or lesbian women, as long as women are in the army). Is he willing to do that?
Accordingly, the military stresses such martial virtues as courage, both physical and moral, a sense of honor and duty, discipline, a professional code of conduct, and loyalty. It places a premium on such factors as unit cohesion and morale. The glue of the military ethos is what the Greeks called philia—friendship, comradeship or brotherly love. Philia, the bond among disparate individuals who have nothing in common but facing death and misery together, is the source of the unit cohesion that most research has shown to be critical to battlefield success.
I am surprised that Mr. Owens, being so versed with Greek, is unaware of the sacred band of Thebes, a.k.a. the fierce Greek regiment of gay lovers. Mr. Owens is quick to condemn eros,
Philia depends on fairness and the absence of favoritism. Favoritism and double standards are deadly to philia and its associated phenomena—cohesion, morale and discipline—are absolutely critical to the success of a military organization.
The presence of open homosexuals in the close confines of ships or military units opens the possibility that eros—which unlike philia is sexual, and therefore individual and exclusive—will be unleashed into the environment. Eros manifests itself as sexual competition, protectiveness and favoritism, all of which undermine the nonsexual bonding essential to unit cohesion, good order, discipline and morale.
And perhaps he is right. After all, it makes so much theoretical sense. But, even if he is right about eros, in particular, the heterosexual jealous kind of love between a man and a woman, the fact is whatever historical evidence we have regarding presence of gay love in a troop and the troop’s performance is not consistent with the conclusion Mr. Owens draws from eros’ supposed property. Perhaps Mr. Owens is, after all, wrong about eros, or gay love is nothing like eros as we understand it. Either way, it makes poor argument against eliminating the “Don’t ask; Don’t tell” policy.
If anything, Mr. Owens makes a great argument for repealing this policy:
To maximize the chances of battlefield success, military organizations must overcome the paralyzing effects of fear on the individual soldier and what the famous Prussian war theorist Carl von Clausewitz called “friction” and the “fog of uncertainty.”
And removing DA;DT policy will do exactly what Mr. Owens wants: it will remove the fog of uncertainty. Today, straight men in the army have to constantly wonder if his colleague is gay or not—after all, if he had been gay, he wouldn’t have told anyone, if he valued his service in the army at all. With DA;DT repealed and gay men left with no reason to hide their sexual orientation, straight men can be positive that their colleagues are probably not gay—or, for those that are, he knows who they are. Repealing DA;DT will allow the military to prepare their forces more effectively—for missions where eros, even homosexual eros, can really interfere (perhaps in ones involving long-term isolation from the main group), they can now form a troop consisting only of heterosexual men, a task currently impossible with a degree of certainty.
So, with all the good reasons gone, is Mr. Owens left with “many foolish reasons to exclude homosexuals from serving in the armed services”? Does he have nothing other than “simple antihomosexual bigotry” to justify his continued support of DA;DT? I would like to know.
. I know, it has nothing to do with exercise (and given that it’s published under a pseudonym, I am not sure if I … trust everything in the book), but it was … very inspiring.