The Prudence Paine Papers

Gay lobby groups and their supporters seem to say that simply permitting gay service members to openly express their sexual orientation will somehow make our military more fair, more equal.

Not so. If Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT) gets repealed, women will immediately become second-class military citizens, simply because they don’t have a Y chromosome. Without DADT, if the military does not transform into a completely unisex environment, it will instantly segregate women from the general population, transforming their quarters into a separate, unequal female ghetto.

Why are women given separate housing, bathing and toilet facilities in an organization that requires complete unity for its survival and readiness? Because of the birds and the bees. Because men and women are sexually attracted to one another. (Well, most of them are.) Because to commingle housing and intimate function facilities would change the dynamics of the personnel interaction, creating an atmosphere ripe for trouble, uneasiness and embarrassment.

We can all pretend that sexual attraction plays no part in interpersonal relationships. We can try to believe that our professional military doesn’t need to have any downtime where they don’t have to be “professional” in their interactions with their coworkers.

Gays in the military say that they are left out of the camaraderie of the male-bonding experience because they can’t talk about what they did on the weekend like everyone else. This is patently ridiculous.

First, there’s no reason why Jim can’t say that he and John had a fabulous time going antiquing and staying at a bed-and-breakfast. If the gay lobby is to be believed, everyone already knows Jim is gay. He just can’t say that. The only thing Jim is prohibited from telling is the details of the sexual activity he engaged in with John.

Yes, straight guys may like to brag about their sexual exploits, but do gay guys expect that their exploits will find equal treatment when hanging with the guys post-DADT? What happened anyway to all the supposed bans on talk of any sexual nature that went into effect when women entered typically male areas and claimed to be too frail or offended to have to be subjected to such a rude, oppressive male environment? Will gays now submit the same lawsuits, object to female pinups unless they can put up their own?

Secondly, this isn’t about being able to openly discuss the details of homosexual activity.  Ultimately, as with gay marriage, it’s getting a leg in the door for the money grab for numerous benefits to be extended to gay partners, cloaked as a civil rights issue. The gay lobby means to gain a significant, substantial legal foothold. If the repeal of DADT causes the military to eventually recognize gay marriages, award benefits to gay partners and even permit transgenders in the armed forces, then this will be put forth as federal sanctioning of gay marriage and will lead to the legal insistence that it should be done in all 50 states.

Perhaps instead of DADT, they should just have a “don’t talk about sex at all” rule. Rather prudish, but at least it doesn’t rip the fabric of society and military cohesion.

If there truly is no reason why gays in the military should not openly express their sexuality, then there is no basis to require some form of separate housing, bathing and toilet facilities for anyone likely to experience sexual desire for one another (and certainly no need for uninterested ones either).

In the heterosexual world, there has always been segregation by sexual preference: men here, women there. But if you add homosexuals into the mix, you will inevitably have men rooming with men to whom they are attracted (and some women in the same situation).

If gay men can live intimately with straight men and have no sexual issues, then women should be able to do the same thing, too. A woman is going to feel no less uncomfortable showering naked with a straight man (or group of straight men) than a straight man will feel in the same situation with a gay man or men.

Therefore, if DADT is repealed, it will be essential to make all housing, bathing and toilet facilities unisex. Otherwise, women once again become excluded, second-class citizens—women locked out simply because they are genetically women.

Women should not be denied the right to participate in the camaraderie and team-building that comes through bunking with the entire group, seeing their fellow soldier in varying states of undress, knowing their bathroom habits and all the other intimate aspects of their lives that are typically shielded from those who don’t share the less dignified aspects of the locker room.

A legal precedent will indeed be set if DADT is repealed. The US government and military will be saying that sexual orientation should never be used as a measure for separate quarters, bathing and toilet facilities.

It appears that a tiny herd of RINOs (Senators Murkowski, Collins and Brown) will permit DADT to get through cloture, meaning the repeal would be a done deal. If that occurs,…

Let the unisex consequences sweep across the land.

Update: The Senate just defeated the defense appropriations bill that included the DADT repeal, but Hot Air reports that Lieberman is going to present it as a stand-alone bill and that repeal still has a chance in the lame duck session.

Update II (12/10/10, 12:45): The Hill reports that newly installed Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, the lone Democrat to vote against cloture on the defense bill that included DADT repeal, issued an apology for his vote, and said Obama should just revoke it himself in the name of national security so the Congress doesn’t have to vote on it.

TheOtherMcCain notes that by forcing a vote prior to the completion of tax and budget legislation that the GOP requires before agreeing to other votes, Reid gave “certain liberal Republicans a (non-homophobic) reason to vote ‘no.’”

Update III (12/15/10, 9:30 pm) The House voted today on a stand-alone DADT bill, which passed 250-175. This bill will make it easier for some Senate Republicans to vote for repeal as well. Just this afternoon, Sen. Olympia Snowe announced her support for the bill.