Like the United States, Britain banned gay service throughout the twentieth century, just as its civilian laws initially criminalized sexual relations between men. (Because Queen Elizabeth purportedly refused to believe that lesbianism existed, there were no laws against female same-sex relationships.) Depending on the service branch, the military dealt with homosexuals either by banning them outright or by charging them with “disgraceful conduct of an indecent kind,” “conduct prejudicial to good order or discipline,” or “scandalous conduct by officers.”13
Reflecting the similarities of American and British culture, the same rationales were invoked to justify the exclusion rules in Britain as in the United States. Only the spelling was different. “Homosexual behaviour can cause offence, polarize relationships, induce ill-discipline, and as a consequence damage morale and unit effectiveness,” argued the British Ministry of Defence. One retired general told the BBC that letting gays serve meant “striking at the root of discipline and morale” since service members had to “live huggermugger at most times.” The general summarized his opposition on behalf of straight troops by arguing that “the great majority do not want to be brought into contact with homosexual practices.” Another retired officer who commanded UN forces in Bosnia recalled that when he had two gay soldiers in his battalion, he “had extreme difficulty in controlling the remainder of the soldiers because they fundamentally wanted to lynch them.”14 In neither country did ban defenders ever explain how denying the presence of gay people who everyone knew were there actually helped preserve privacy, nor why service members who had signed up precisely to leave behind their privacy and risk their very lives should be expected to wither, wilt, and crumble when knowingly exposed to the gaze of gays.
The British rationale for gay exclusion also shared much of its history with the United States. Its language spoke of “sexual deviancy” and “feminine gestures,” of mental illness and sexually transmitted diseases. The same distinctions between identity and behavior were made, followed by the same collapsing of those distinctions: Like the American policy, the British rules specified that the admission of homosexuality was grounds for dismissal even if no behavior was involved. The history of gays in the British military is replete with surveillance, informants, blackmail, stakeouts, investigations, and psychological exams.15
By the time the British High Court heard a major challenge to the gay ban in 1995, most of the above rationales had been annihilated. Although the court rebuffed the service members’ challenge and allowed the military to continue its ban, the Ministry of Defence created the Homosexual Policy Assessment Team to evaluate its policy. The move was a response to a warning by the court that, despite its current ruling in favor of the military, the gay ban was unlikely to survive a direct challenge in the European Convention on Human Rights, which, unlike the British High Court, had the authority to force the military’s hand.
The assessment team consulted the experiences of other countries, including Canada, Australia, and Israel. In their visits, they were told by official after official that gay service had not undermined military performance. In response, British researchers acknowledged that the ban could be lifted, but that such a change would be unlikely not because of a military rationale but because of political resistance. The team also took extensive, but flawed, surveys indicating that large majorities of British troops opposed gay service. Questions were stacked (“Do you agree that all homosexual acts are perverted?”) and anonymity was compromised by the requirement that respondents disclose numerous personal details, including their service branch, unit, rank, and birthplace.16
Ultimately, the team recommended that the military retain its ban. But the rationale it focused on revealed the collapse of all but one of the justifications for gay exclusion. The assumption that gays were a threat to security and a predatory menace to young troops, said the report, was unfounded.17 Rather, the problem was that straight soldiers disliked gays; letting known gays serve would therefore undermine cohesion and threaten recruitment. Prejudice had become a justification, once again, for continuing itself. Lifting the ban, said the report, “would be an affront to service people” and lead to “heterosexual resentment and hostility.” Reform at the urging of civilian society would be viewed by military members as “coercive interference in their way of life.”
And there you had it. The self-image of the British military, its members’ sense of entitlement to preserve a way of life they saw as besieged, and to carry things out in the way they saw fit—these were the currency of the debate. That “way of life” was a polite way of describing heterosexual supremacy or prejudice against gays. The report made clear that there was no evidence that gays were unsuited to military service. But, as in the American debate, the moral opposition of straights was cleverly tied to military needs, allowing senior leaders to argue that military effectiveness justified gay exclusion.
Leaders of the British forces were not stupid, however, and they were not blind to the changes in society taking shape around them throughout the 1990s. Bracing for a heftier challenge in the European Court of Human Rights, which threatened to cost the government billions in wrongful dismissal claims, the military ordered a relaxation of enforcement of the ban, telling commanders only to investigate suspected homosexuals if an unavoidable problem arose. For gays, the change was minimal: They continued to lose their jobs, receive unequal treatment, and operate in a climate of discrimination, fear, and uncertainty.
It was not until the European Court of Human Rights issued its ruling, in the fall of 1999, that the British government agreed it would have to lift the ban. The court in Strasbourg, France, whose decisions are binding on all member nations, was composed of judges from Britain, France, Cyprus, Lithuania, Austria, Norway, and Albania. The unanimous ruling found that the British Defence Ministry had violated the European Convention’s guarantee of an “equal respect” to “private and family life” and that the policy and the investigations it prompted were “exceptionally intrusive.”18 The court soundly rejected the military’s claim that the unique circumstances of life in the armed forces justified anti-gay discrimination and ruled that heterosexual bias against gays was no more compelling a reason to ban them than would be animus against groups with a different race or ethnic or national origin. It swiftly dismissed the military’s contention that gay service would endanger morale, saying the foundation of such arguments in opinion polls made them unconvincing. A better way to address these worries, said the court, would be with a uniform code of conduct, not a blanket ban on individuals with a particular orientation.
The Ministry of Defence immediately announced that it accepted the ruling and it ordered a halt to all discharges while it studied how to abide by the court’s decision. The chief of defence staff general, despite expecting some tough scenarios for commanding officers, expressed confidence in the military’s ability to make the changes, saying that “times have changed” since the gay ban was first formulated. “I don’t believe that the operational efficiency of the Services will be affected,” he said, “although I’m not saying we won’t have some difficult incidents.” Ultimately, he concluded, “We think we can make it work.”19
In trying to figure out how to “make it work,” the British military considered the American “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. What they found was that it was a “disaster,” which “hadn’t worked,” was “unworkable,” and was “hypocritical.” Instead, the British military opted for full repeal and based its new regulations on the Australian model, which simply banned public displays of affection, harassment, and inappropriate relationships. The Ministry of Defence formally lifted its gay ban on January 12, 2000, inviting ousted troops to reapply for service and squirreling away millions of dollars for anticipated legal complaints for unfair dismissal.
AFTER RUNNING OUT of rationales for gay exclusion, the British military, like the U.S. military, had justified discrimination on the basis of discrimination. The European Court of
Human Rights was unconvinced that this reasoning showed a compelling need to ban gays from service. Still, if the prejudice of young straight troops and potential recruits truly meant that forced tolerance would undermine military performance and the capacity of the British government to keep its people safe, and if no leadership or management skills were capable of mitigating this harm, shouldn’t this reality have justified continuing discrimination against gays?
Answering this question is necessarily, in part, an ethical question, subject to a cost-benefit analysis. It requires assessing the value of equal treatment and comparing it with the damage that would be wrought—if any—by the ensuing impairment to military performance. But the link itself—between equal treatment and damage to cohesion—remains totally unproven. Worse still, the evidence from country after country shows the link to be false. In the real world, the hypothesis is testable—and it has been tested. So, after all the caution, after all the anxiety and the doomsday warnings about what would happen when open gays were officially allowed to serve, what happened when Britain, Israel, Canada, Australia, and numerous other militaries lifted their bans?
Nothing. Well, almost nothing. The only effects of lifting gay exclusion rules have been positive ones. Militaries in Great Britain, Australia, Canada, and Israel have seen reductions in harassment, less anxiety about sexual orientation in the ranks, greater openness in relations between gays and straights, and less restricted access to recruitment pools as schools and universities welcomed the military back onto campus for dropping their discriminatory practices. Above all, none of the crises in recruitment, retention, resignations, morale, cohesion, readiness, or “operational effectiveness” came to pass.
One of the strongest pieces of evidence came from the British military itself. Six months after lifting its ban, the Ministry of Defence turned to study the consequences. The report was intended for internal use only and not for public release—which suggests that it represented an accurate, comprehensive assessment of the policy change, without risk of being swayed by the requisites of politics or public relations. And it had the benefit of full access to all available data.
The conclusions were definitive. The report, dated October 31, 2000, and eventually leaked to the press, said the lifting of the ban was “hailed as a solid achievement” that was “introduced smoothly with fewer problems than might have been expected.” The changes had “no discernible impact” on recruitment. There was “widespread acceptance of the new policy,” and military members generally “demonstrated a mature and pragmatic approach” to the change. There were no reported problems with homosexuals harassing heterosexuals, and there were “no reported difficulties of note concerning homophobic behavior amongst Service Personnel.” The report concluded that “there has been a marked lack of reaction” to the change.20
Independent assessments by senior government and military officials in Britain consistently confirmed the military’s findings that lifting the gay ban in Britain had no negative impact on performance. “At the end of the day, operational effectiveness is the critical matter, and there has been no effect at all,” reported a high-level official. Just nine months after the new policy was instituted, this official said that “homosexuality doesn’t even come up anymore—it’s no longer an issue.” One lieutenant colonel reported that “there has been absolutely no reaction to the change in policy regarding homosexuals within the military. It’s just been accepted.” He said that emphasis on fair treatment and personal responsibility meant people had ceased to focus on sexual orientation and cared far more about individual performance and responsibility to the team. Even the very vocal worries about privacy and sharing showers and berths with gays—a perpetual focus of resistance in the United States—turned out to be a dud. A press official at the Ministry of Defence said that “the media likes scare stories—about showers and what have you. A lot of people were worried that they would have to share body heat in close quarters or see two men being affectionate, and they would feel uncomfortable. But it has proved at first look that it’s not an issue.”21
Again and again, experts expressed surprise at how little the change had meant, and how much easier the transition had been than what they expected, given the vocal resistance before the ban ended. The military’s director of personnel said, “We’ve had very few real problems that have emerged, and people seem to have, slightly surprisingly, settled down and accepted the current arrangements. And we don’t really have the problems that we thought we’d have.” An official of the Personnel Management Agency said, “The anticipated tide of criticism from some quarters within the Service was completely unfounded.” One commander attributed the smoother-than-anticipated transition to a generation gap, finding that “our youngsters have just taken it in stride.” He concluded that “it’s a major nonissue, which has come as a considerable surprise.”22
What’s surprising, really, is that the results in Britain should have surprised so many people. The finding of “no impact” there was simply an echo of what had happened (or hadn’t happened, to be more precise) in Canada, Australia, and Israel the decade before. Perhaps people had put too much stock in the 1996 Ministry of Defence opinion survey of 13,500 British service members, which showed that two-thirds would refuse to serve with gays. Instead of the tens of thousands of resignations this poll predicted, officials estimated the actual number as between one and three, and two of those were reportedly planning to leave the service anyway.
But even this contrast between anticipated doom and yawning reality was a replay of the scenario in Canada. Before the Canadian Forces lifted the gay ban, a survey of 6,500 male service members found that 62 percent would refuse to share quarters with gay soldiers and 45 percent would not work with gays. But more than two years after gay exclusion ended, there was no mass exodus and no indication of any impact on cohesion, morale, readiness, recruitment, or retention. An assessment by a bureau of the Canadian military found that, “despite all the anxiety that existed through the late 80s into the early 90s about the change in policy, here’s what the indicators show—no effect.”23
What was true for Britain and Canada was also true for Israel and Australia. Indeed, the results of ending gay exclusion rules in every nation studied have been so uniform, so uneventful, so tediously boring and repetitive that they are almost too dull to describe. A small sampling will have to suffice, so as not to grind book sales to a halt. The Rand report, released in the United States and effectively ignored in the spring of 1993, included an exhaustive assessment of homosexual policies in Canada, Israel, and Britain, as well as Norway, the Netherlands, France, and Germany. At the time, Britain was the only nation to have a full ban on gay service. Of those that allowed gays to serve, Rand found that “none of the militaries studied for this report believe their effectiveness as an organization has been impaired or reduced as a result of the inclusion of homosexuals.” In Canada, where the ban had just ended, Rand found “no resignations (despite previous threats to quit), no problems with recruitment, and no diminution of cohesion, morale, or organizational effectiveness.” Ditto Israel. The U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences also studied the situation in Canada and concluded that anticipated damage to readiness never materialized after the ban was lifted: “Negative consequences predicted in the areas of recruitment, employment, attrition, retention, and cohesion and morale have not occurred” since the policy was changed, the report stated.24
Also in 1993, the GAO reported its findings from its study of twenty-five foreign militaries. In Australia, the GAO found, “Effects on unit cohesiveness have not yet been fully determined. However, early indications are that the new policy has had little or no adverse impact.” Research over time, however, confirmed that openly gay service there caused no trouble. In 1996, when Britain was considering lifting its ban, government researchers issued a report on the situation in Australia, which concluded that, despite an early outcry, homosexuality quickly became a nonissu
e: Any challenges in integrating open gays were regarded as “just another legitimate management problem.” The GAO found precisely the same results for Israel.25
In 2000, after Britain lifted its ban, the Palm Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara, conducted exhaustive studies to assess the effects of openly gay service in Britain, Israel, Canada, and Australia. Researchers there reviewed over six hundred documents and contacted every identifiable professional with expertise on the policy change, including military officers, government leaders, academic researchers, journalists who covered the issue, veterans, and nongovernmental observers. Palm found that not one person had observed any impact or any effect at all that “undermined military performance, readiness, or cohesion, led to increased difficulties in recruiting or retention, or increased the rate of HIV infection among the troops.” Those interviewed—including generals, civilian defense leaders, field commanders, and many officials who had predicted major problems if gays were permitted to serve openly—uniformly reported there had been “no impact.” Again and again, researchers heard the same thing: Lifting the ban was “an absolute non-event.” Openly gay service was “not that big a deal for us.” Open gays “do not constitute an issue [with respect to] unit cohesion” and the whole subject “is very marginal indeed as far as this military is concerned.” Whether gays serve openly or not “has not impaired the morale, cohesion, readiness, or security of any unit.” The policy change has “not caused any degree of difficulty.”26
The results did not mean that everybody was happy with openly gay service. Nor did researchers conclude that such resistance and resentment were entirely without consequence. Many, many people were upset about the idea. Male service members, in particular, continued to express concern that the presence of known gays in a unit might damage morale, and the anti-gay sentiment sometimes manifested itself in harassment or abuse. But the evidence has been consistent that these reactions to the policy change did not translate into overall impairment of morale, readiness, or cohesion.
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