Here are the key points from the just-released Pentagon Survey on repealing "don't ask, don't tell":
When asked about how having a Service member in their immediate unit who said heor she is gay would affect the unit's ability to “work together to get the job done,” 70% ofService members predicted it would have a positive, mixed, or no effect.
When asked “in your career, have you ever worked in a unit with a co-worker that you believed to be homosexual,” 69% of Service members reported that they had.
When asked about the actual experience of serving in a unit with a co-worker who they believed was gay or lesbian, 92% stated that the unit's “ability to work together” was “very good,” “good,” or “neither good nor poor.”
So most service members think they've served with someone who is gay or lesbian, and more than nine out of 10 of those people concluded -- much as the 1993 RAND study did -- that their ability to perform tasks was unaffected. Predicting that opponents of repeal would argue that the problem would be with open service, the DoD report includes a thoughtful rebuttal:
In the course of our assessment, it became apparent to us that, aside from the moral and religious objections to homosexuality, much of the concern about “open” service is driven by misperceptions and stereotypes about what it would mean if gay Service members were allowed to be “open” about their sexual orientation. Repeatedly, we heard Service members express the view that “open” homosexuality would lead to widespread and overt displays of effeminacy among men, homosexual promiscuity, harassment and unwelcome advances within units, invasions of personal privacy, and an overall erosion of standards of conduct, unit cohesion, and morality. Based on our review, however, we conclude that these concerns about gay and lesbian Service members who are permitted to be “open” about their sexual orientation are exaggerated, and not consistent with the reported experiences of many Service members.
To put it simply, those who believe that being openly gay necessarily means adhering to flamboyant stereotypes are operating with a very limited and archaic understanding of what gays and lesbians are actually like. As the report notes, "When asked about serving with the imagined gay Service member who is 'open' about his or her sexual orientation, that feature becomes the predominant if not solecharacteristic of the individual, and stereotypes fill in the rest of the picture." I wonder how much of the receding public opposition to repealing DADT is reliant on that kind of psychological artifact.
Nonetheless, the report contains some ammunition for those opposed to repeal, namely that combat units are more likely to predict negative effects of ending DADT. According to the report, "While the percentage of the overall U.S. military that predicts negative or very negative effects on their unit's ability to “work together to get the job done” is 30%, the percentage is 43% for the Marine Corps, 48% within Army combat arms units, and 58% within Marine combat arms units." In practice, though, even combat unit members who believed they were serving with someone who was gay overwhelmingly believed it didn't matter:
Meanwhile, in response to the same question, the percentage is 89% for those in Army combat arms units and 84% for those in Marine combat arms units—all very high percentages.19 Anecdotally, we heard much the same. As one special operations force warfighter told us, “We have a gay guy [in the unit]. He's big, he's mean, and he kills lots of bad guys. No one cared that he was gay.”
Not only that, but according to the survey, predictions of negative outcomes from repealing DADT tended to decrease when involving “intense combat situations.” Like I said before, like racists, when placed in foxholes, homophobes tend to become an endangered species. Or as the report puts it, "attitudes, which are often laden with emotion and misperception, are less valuable as predictors of future behavior than actual experiences." Consider that prior to integration, more than 76 percent of "combat crews" were opposed. Yet a study during the Korean War proved integrated units fought as well as all-white units.
Aside from the fact that allowing gays and lesbians to serve is far less divisive than racial integration of the military was at the time of its implementation, the report notes that opposition to allowing open service was far higher in countries like Israel and the UK prior to their abolishing discrimination against gays and lesbians. So while opponents are likely to use the relatively higher numbers related to the predictions of combat troops to stall repeal, the report bolsters the arguments of repeal advocates who say that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly won't harm the military. The question now is whether or not the few Republican senators who have indicated they might support repeal will have the courage to act now that the empirical basis for opposition to DADT repeal has been completely obliterated.
