While most of the military leadership has signaled their support for ending the military's discriminatory "don't ask, don't tell" policy prohibiting gays and lesbians from serving openly, the Marine leadership has consistently been opposed. The previous Marine commandant, James Conway, estimated that "90 percent" of marines would be opposed to ending DADT, and his successor Gen. James Amos has expressed opposition as well.
Today, The Washington Post reports that the military's internal survey will show that most service members are supportive or indifferent to allowing gays and lesbians to openly serve.
More than 70 percent of respondents to a survey sent to active-duty and reserve troops over the summer said the effect of repealing the "don't ask, don't tell" policy would be positive, mixed or nonexistent, said two sources familiar with the document. The survey results led the report's authors to conclude that objections to openly gay colleagues would drop once troops were able to live and serve alongside them.
The branch of the service most opposed are the Marines, although they're still in the minority at 40 percent, far from the ludicrous 90 percent predicted by Conway.
The Post also quotes Gen. Amos' remarks from last weekend expressing concern about "unit cohesion."
"There is nothing more intimate than young men and young women -- and when you talk of infantry, we're talking about our young men -- lying out, sleeping alongside of one another and sharing death, fear and loss of brothers," Amos told reporters. "I don't know what the effect of that will be on cohesion. I mean, that's what we're looking at. It's unit cohesion. It's combat effectiveness."
What's remarkable is that even in 1993, when the policy was instituted, the empirical evidence suggested that this was nonsense. The RAND study found that "task cohesion," which was vital to the completion of military tasks, was distinct from "social cohesion," or service members actually liking each other. That's how black and white soldiers could serve together in Korea in the 1950s even as the South groaned under the heel of Jim Crow and white soldiers remained hostile to integration. At the time, the military study on integration, Project Clear, found that integrated units performed as well as white units.
To borrow a phrase, it turns out there aren't too many racists in foxholes, and it sounds like there aren't many homophobes either.
