Charlie’s House

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

I’m opposed to gays serving in the military. There, I said it. To my gay friends out there, I’m sorry if that hurts you feelings. It’s nothing personal, I just don’t think it’s a good idea.

For those of you who have never served in the military, I respectfully ask that you keep your opinions to yourself. When you’ve lived like a grunt/jarhead/squid or zoomie for a couple of months (years?), feel free to speak up. (Pet peeve: “armchair soldiers”)

The living space of your typical service member is pretty cramped. Most of the time (not all the time, but most of the time) these living areas are separated by gender or to be more precise by sexuality. X’s have their space and Y’s have their separate space. If X and Y are attracted to one another, they can find a private place and get intimate. If X is attracted to Y, but Y doesn’t reciprocate, then X can go to her place and get away from Y, at least for a little while. If any of you have ever been in that kind of one-sided relationship, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Even though Y is a nice guy, polite and discreet, every time X sees him she gets a little uncomfortable. At the end of the day, she’s happy to go home and get away from the uncomfortable-ness.

You can probably see where I going with this. If Yh is attracted to Ys, but Ys doesn’t reciprocate, where does Ys go to get space? Yh and Ys live in the same cramped little space, shower together, brush their teeth together. In fact they do everything together. If you’ve ever been in a one-sided relationship, you probably have a little bit of a cold sweat starting right about now. Yes?

Now, let’s add extreme, pressure-cooker stress and live ammunition to the mix.

I’m not in any way saying that the gay person in this scenario is some kind of deviant. As I said in my XY example, the homosexual person is most likely polite, composed and “cool.” It’s a sad truth that many gays have a lot of practice at flying under the radar and hiding what they feel. The problem is in the mind of the straight person. Perceived sexual innuendo, perceived bias, perceived pressure. These perceptions aren’t necessarily real, but they have real results.

So, how do you account for this? You can’t just put the gay men in with the straight women, every Neanderthal out there would claim to be gay. You can’t have separate living quarters for men, women and gay service members, that’s just not practical. The only thing you can do is either ban gays from service completely, or ask them to be discreet about their sexual identity. In other words, don’t ask don’t tell.

So, here’s to hoping they keep don’t ask, don’t tell. Not because I have a problem with gays serving, but because I have a problem with straight people getting over themselves.