Just thought I would provide y’all with a place to comment upon Admiral Mike Mullen’s testimony yesterday in favor of eliminating the policy generally (although, I keep hearing, inaccurately) described as “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” To quote the most pertinent part of the admiral’s remarks:

No matter how I look at the issue, I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens

Personally, I don’t have much to say about it, beyond not being able to resist a play upon the famous Churchill quote about naval tradition, since this message came from an admiral. Beyond that, and moving on to more pertinent observations, “Don’t ask, don’t tell” has always sounded pretty good to me, although I certainly don’t pretend to being an expert on it. It matched my own personal policy about such matters, which is that I won’t ask, and I don’t want you to tell, and I won’t bother you with my proclivities, either. (And when I DO slip and display them, y’all should call me down for it.)

Interesting thing about that policy. Everyone acts like it was some horrible thing instituted to persecute people, when actually it marked the end of the witch hunts that preceded it. (In that regard, it reminds me of all the folks who are so indignant over “minimally adequate,” when Chief Justice Finney thought it was a great improvement on what preceded it. Irony abounds.) Remember the prolonged efforts by the Navy to weed lesbians out of the Marine Corps at Parris Island back in the 80s? It was pretty ridiculous, and a huge waste of resources.

Anyway, I’ve always attached a great deal of importance to the opinions of the military brass on this subject. And before yesterday, they generally presented a fairly solid phalanx against changing the policy. But now that Adm. Mullen has tacked in a different direction, I think his position deserves just as respectful a hearing (my joke about the Churchill quote notwithstanding).

While the admiral is providing powerful testimony to the contrary, I am sensible of the traditional arguments about what open sexual tensions can do to unit cohesion. There’s a good piece about that in the WSJ today (which you may want to read as the complement to the admiral’s testimony), complete with an interesting discussion about the difference between philia, the kind of love that is nonexclusive and multidirectional and which promotes unit cohesion (a love among — band of brothers stuff — rather than a love between), and eros, which is specific and exclusive and militates against esprit de corps. One flaw in the piece is that it doesn’t mention what the inclusion of women on U.S. Navy ships and in other situations has done to morale. (I’ve always thought that was a very bad idea, and I’d be very interested to see a really frank and objective study of how that has played out.) But the same argument holds in that case.

One more point: Whether allowing gay personnel to be open about their sexuality is a good or bad idea, it is certainly completely invalid to compare it to the racial integration of the military. As I often say about bogus comparisons of gender and race issues, boys and girls are different; black people and white people are not. The issues involved here are just as different. The aforementioned piece quotes Colin Powell putting it better than I can:

Skin color is a benign nonbehavioral characteristic. Sexual orientation is perhaps the most profound of human behavioral characteristics. Comparison of the two is a convenient but invalid argument.

The only arguments that seem relevant to me are those that bear on whether the current policy or its amendment or revocation would be best in terms of the military’s effectiveness. And I’d like to see a good discussion of that.

Now, y’all go ahead and discuss, and I’ll move on to other matters…