Unfriendly Fire

by Dr. Nathaniel Frank

  As Moskos put it in interviews, “in a heterosexual environment, you can do a lot of patting people on the ass, hugging, and all that, which might not be possible among open gays.” In many Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cultures, which are homophobic by American standards, men stroll down the street kissing and holding hands without fear that their affection has a sexual meaning. It’s the homophobic norms that make this possible. “It might even be that the more homoerotic tendencies there are in a group,” said Moskos, “the more homophobic they will be.” Does this mean the military must ensure that certain emotions are kept repressed? It must ensure, says Moskos, that they “remain subdued.”58

  DURING THE SENATE hearings, talk of the latent homosexual subculture of the Wehrmacht army passed far over the head of Senator Sam Nunn. “How in the world,” he asked, “is that applicable to what we are talking about here? It does not seem to me to apply or have any application to America.” But the Wehrmacht research was one of the most directly applicable pieces of research to address the relationship between sexuality, cohesion, and military performance. There was “a strong male homoerotic tendency among these combat groups,” Moskos confirmed. And yet, as Senator William Cohen pointed out, they were not barred from military service. In fact, Cohen said, “The one piece of research I am aware of that addresses this issue, a piece of research that has previously been brought to the attention of this committee, throws into question the assertion that homosexual tendencies will necessarily undermine unit cohesion.”59

  Could the Wehrmacht research apply in the United States? No one has replicated the Shils and Janowitz research, and the differences between the U.S. military today and the German army of more than a half century ago are enormous. Yet, though the homoerotic thesis emerged from the specific context of a World War II authoritarian regime, it is surely significant that the reigning study on social cohesion and military performance theorized an erotic foundation for same-sex bonding and combat effectiveness. Cohen’s thesis remains sound: The empirical research that was directly responsive to the question of same-sex love and cohesion said the opposite of what the ban’s champions were saying: Same-sex desire did not undermine cohesion but strengthened it.

  This is not to say that an influx of gay people into the military will increase our chances of winning the war in Iraq. As Moskos and Segal explained, it is repressed homoerotic tendencies that were shown to have helped cohesion in Wehrmacht Germany, not a gaggle of actual homosexuals. But Shils and Janowitz make clear what the real threat is of acknowledging a gay presence in the military: that it could somehow chip away at these repressed feelings and arouse in straight people the kinds of homoerotic tendencies that are typically kept at bay. This means the distinction between conduct and status is immaterial. It is not gay people doing their thing in private that threatens morale, discipline, or cohesion; rather, it is the knowledge by a straight man that a pat on the ass, long considered an expression of innocent bonding, might now be fraught with same-sex desire.

  This is why military doctors, during and after World War II, were so concerned with effeminate and showy traits, rather than whether recruits were actually gay or engaging in homosexual conduct. The knowledge that there are gay people in the military could bring straight people face-to-face with same-sex desire, which could trigger insecurities about their own desires.

  In the end, one of the few pieces of data that actually spoke to the issue of same-sex love in the military was, like actual gays in the military, acknowledged before Congress but then thoroughly ignored. As strange as it may sound, the Shils and Janowitz literature could have helped focus national attention on what was—and remains—needed to solve the problem of homosexuality in American culture. It is really a problem that straight people must solve (even if, as is most likely, it will come only at the prodding of gays and lesbians). What’s needed is for straight people to challenge their reflexive moral opposition to same-sex desire, in others and in themselves. What’s so bad about men loving men or women loving women? What would be so horrible about discovering that maybe even you have some love for a same-sex friend that’s a bit stronger than friendship? The perspective offered by research into the complex and even discomfiting corners of human psychology was just what the United States needed at the height of the gay service debate. Instead, policy makers and much of the nation dismissed evidence that was difficult and relevant and embraced evidence that was misleading, false, or irrelevant.

  WRAPPED IN THE language of individual sacrifice, national security, and the unique conditions of military service, defenders of the military’s ban were able to ward off serious scrutiny of the need for reform. They were able to substitute the personal judgment of military leaders for persuasive evidence and cast that judgment as rooted in professional experience rather than personal animus. The courts and the Congress played along willingly, accepting hook, line, and sinker that the risk of flouting military judgment on gay service was too high to brook. And it didn’t seem to matter that even trusted military advocates like Charles Moskos acknowledged publicly that the ban was rooted not in genuine concerns over unit cohesion but in “antipathy toward gays”—a “prejudice,” the professor added, that has a “rational basis.”60

  6

  Gays in Foreign Militaries

  THE CLEAREST EVIDENCE that openly gay service does not undermine unit cohesion comes from the experience of foreign militaries. Twenty-four now have no ban on gay service members: Australia, Austria, Bahamas, Belgium, Britain, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland. The United States, with its ban on open gays, stands in the company of Argentina, Belarus, Brazil, Croatia, Greece, Poland, Peru, Portugal, Russia, Turkey, and Venezuela. The list does not include those countries in which homosexuality is banned outright, such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, and several other nations in the Middle East. These countries generally have no stated policy on gays in the military because they do not allow or acknowledge the presence of gays at all.

  In the fall of 1992, just as Bill Clinton was clinching the U.S. presidency, Canada and Australia lifted their bans on gay service members. And in 1993, as the religious right and Sam Nunn were wooing the nation with their pro-ban messages, Israel followed suit. At the dawn of the twenty-first century, our staunchest ally and cultural compatriot, Great Britain, joined a growing tide of militaries allowing openly gay service. The cumulative picture is striking. The American military was certainly not alone in its opposition to gay service; indeed, much of the world has had formal or informal bans against gays in the armed forces (or, in the case of many countries with no written policy on gay service, collective illusions that gays don’t exist). But as the late twentieth century saw an inexorable shift toward recognizing the rights of gays and other minority groups, the U.S. military distinguished itself through its willful resistance to change. Throughout the 1990s, as the American government dug in its heels despite mounting evidence that “don’t ask, don’t tell” wasn’t working, other countries around the globe were taking the opposite tack.

  The effects of allowing gays to serve openly were, to the surprise of these militaries themselves, stunningly anticlimatic. It is perhaps one of the reasons why so few people knew about the changes—the media is not wild about stories in which, quite simply, nothing happens. But the lessons from other nations, despite efforts by pro-ban Americans to ignore and dismiss their relevance to the United States, are profound, and make a closer look at the experiences of foreign militaries a worthwhile trip.

  UNTIL 1988, THE Canadian Forces had in place a policy nearly identical to the American ban: Gays and lesbians were barred from service and anyone who believed a peer was gay was required to report the suspicion to a superior. The Canadian ban was relaxed in 1988, as pressure mounted to bring the policy in line with the 1978 Canadian Human Rights Act and the 1985 Canadian Charter o
f Rights and Freedoms. The initial changes involved removing the reporting requirement and loosening enforcement, but unequal treatment of heterosexual and gay troops remained: Known gays and lesbians were routinely denied promotions, security clearances, and awards. The Department of National Defence continued to argue that a formal ban was necessary to protect “cohesion and morale, discipline, leadership, recruiting, medical fitness, and the rights to privacy of other members.”1

  Yet momentum was growing in favor of change. Inspired by other court decisions, five service members sued the Canadian Forces and won an initial ruling that the gay ban violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Ultimately the Canadian military agreed to settle its case in 1992, acknowledging that it was unlikely to win the case on its merits.

  It is commonly thought that progressive reform in Canada went over without a whit of resistance. In fact, opposition was intense. Surveys showed that majorities of those in the military would not share sleeping and bathing quarters with known gays, and many said they would refuse to work with gays or accept a gay supervisor. A military task force was formed during the debate; it recommended that gay exclusion remain, as “the effect of the presence of homosexuals would [lead to] a serious decrease in operational effectiveness.” Even when the military determined it would lose its case in court, the government delayed the change because of the vociferous opposition of Conservatives in Parliament. The similarities to opposition in the United States were striking.2

  The Australian Defence Forces did not see quite the same fight. Until 1986 commanders were given wide discretion to decide when to boot gays, and leaders were able to rely on civilian laws against sodomy and homosexual relations to root them out. Ironically, in 1986, at the very moment when the rest of society was liberalizing its limitations on homosexual behavior, the Australian military tightened its own regulations. State and federal laws banning sodomy fell during this decade as the country brought its laws into conformity with new international human rights accords. Unable to continue to draw on civilian laws against homosexual behavior, the ADF banned homosexual service outright in 1986.3

  The short-lived Australian gay ban was always weaker than the policies in many of its ally nations. While there were reports of witch hunts and unequal treatment, the policy was often enforced unevenly and the tolerance and inconsistent enforcement extended to commanders throughout the services, who were often aware of gays and lesbians under their command and took no steps to kick them out. In the years leading up to the ban’s formal end, the ADF had been pressed to respond to several cultural trends toward liberalization and to specific complaints that the military was not doing enough to recruit, retain, and respect women and racial and ethnic minorities. Such criticism could not be ignored, as the armed forces were finding it difficult to fill their ranks.4

  It was in this context—one that highlighted the needs of the military as much as the social and cultural pressures for greater tolerance—that the Australian military began to consider formally ending its restrictions on gays and lesbians. Legal considerations also held sway: In 1980, the Commonwealth had adopted the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and while homosexuality was not mentioned, political leaders interpreted the covenant to ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. When a lesbian soldier complained to the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission that her sexual orientation was the partial basis of her discharge, the ADA agreed to review its policy but chose to retain its formal ban.

  Political pressure, however, was mounting and the government created a study group to look into the policy and make a formal recommendation. During the study period, those who opposed gay service made the familiar arguments: The presence of known gays and lesbians would compromise effectiveness by impairing cohesion and driving down morale. Nevertheless, the study group recommended in 1992 that the gay ban be replaced with a policy of nondiscrimination, and the liberal government of Prime Minister Paul Keating, helped by the health minister’s argument that keeping homosexuality secret exacerbated efforts to fight AIDS, ordered the new policy implemented immediately.5

  As was the case elsewhere, the changes were vehemently opposed. The major veterans group in Australia insisted that tolerating known gays would undermine cohesion and break the bonds of trust that were essential to an effective military. Some claimed that the presence of gays would increase the spread of HIV through battlefield blood transfers. It didn’t seem to occur to them that the best way to fight this prospect was to identify gays with AIDS rather than require them to remain in the closet.

  Like Australia, Israel did not have a long-standing, explicit ban on homosexual service members, but used discretion to determine when commanders believed gay or lesbian troops were problematic and worthy of exclusion. For most of the country’s short history, not surprisingly, routine prejudice meant that the Israel Defense Forces dismissed known gays because leaders assumed their sexuality made them unsuitable. A 1983 regulation made clear that service members were not to be discharged simply because they were gay, but required them to undergo a mental health evaluation and banned them from top-secret positions.6

  A decade later, while the United States was embroiled in an agonizing discussion about gay service, Israel began its own, more tempered debate. Ironically, given how American policy ended up, Israeli officials acknowledged that President Clinton’s support for gay service had been influential in driving debate in Israel, where the issue of gay rights had never been discussed at such high levels of government. The discussion was also prompted by an unusual hearing at the Knesset, when Uzi Even, the chairman of the Chemistry Department at Tel Aviv University and a senior weapons development researcher, told the nation he had been stripped of his security clearance when his homosexuality was revealed. Even had supplied the government with top-notch security research for fifteen years. He was deemed a security threat even though he had just come out of the closet, thus neutralizing any possibility of blackmail.7

  With the vocal support of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who stated, “I don’t see any reason to discriminate against homosexuals,” and the military chief of staff, Lieutenant General Ehud Barak, a military committee was created to review the policy and make recommendations for change. With no military officials testifying against reform,8 the review committee recommended new regulations that officially “recognized that homosexuals are entitled to serve in the military as are others.” In response, the Israeli military banned any restrictions or differential treatment based on sexual orientation and ordered that decisions about placement, promotion, and security clearances be based on individual aptitude and behavior without regard to orientation.

  The absence of official resistance did not mean that Israel had ceased to be a homophobic culture—founded, as it was, on biblical precepts, with a government heavily influenced by religious Jews and a society enamored of macho men. A study conducted in the 1980s found that Israeli attitudes toward homosexuals were more negative than American attitudes. Even in the 1990s, Israel’s organized gay rights lobby was miniscule compared to its American counterpart, thus limiting the strength of voices pressing for reform. And the military was, as in the United States, a particularly conservative institution within the larger society. During induction, gays were referred to a psychologist for an evaluation. “Based on the assumption, correct or incorrect, that sometimes along with homosexuality come other behavioral disturbances, we conduct a more in-depth clinical interview,” said Dr. Reuven Gal, who was chief psychologist for the IDF.9

  In the early 1990s, Ron Paran, a psychologist working with gays and lesbians in Israel, found marked homophobia in Israeli society, particularly in the military. “I think there are still a lot of people in the psychiatric profession and in the army who still see homosexuality as a problem,” he said, “and this policy is their way of expressing that.” Paran said Israel was a “paradox” in which the laws are “much more liberal than the general society.” As in s
ociety generally, he said the military was instinctually uncomfortable with homosexuality. “I work with a lot of teachers and parents who may cognitively understand homosexuality, but in their emotional response to it are still very backward. The army is the same way.”10

  Yet as a nation with compulsory service, which recognized the formative role of that service in creating a sense of citizenship, Israel determined by 1993 that it was unfair, unwise, and unnecessary to bar an entire group of people from the military. Its new regulations said that “there is no limit on the induction of homosexuals to the army and their induction is according to the criteria that apply to all candidates to the army.”11

  That spring, Congress sent researchers from the General Accounting Office to Israel and three other countries to learn from the reforms implemented there. But because the IDF was a conscription military, in which service was mandatory for most Israeli citizens,12 some opponents of gay service in the United States dismissed the notion that any lessons could be learned from Israel. Lifting the remaining ban in Israel, they pointed out, was less perilous than in other nations, which relied on volunteers to staff their armed forces (the term more properly should be “voluntary recruits” since “volunteer” implies someone who is unpaid, but the language employed here is the traditional usage). Recruitment and retention were therefore not at risk in Israel, where citizens had no choice about whether to join the armed forces and could not be scared off by the presence of open gays.

  But the same could not be said of Great Britain, a powerful western European nation that shares cultural roots with the United States, and whose military is strong, voluntary, and combat-tested. Indeed, British troops routinely fight alongside American troops, sharing everything from logistical support to personnel, including commanders. What happened, then, when Great Britain lifted its ban?