Imagine that every soldier upon entering the military was asked a simple question.
Would you prefer to serve in a command without any gay personnel?Soldiers would know that if they answer “No” they would be assigned to an “inclusive” command, and that if they answer “Yes” they would be assigned to an “exclusive” command.
Asking this question does not violate “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” because it does not ask a soldier about his or her own sexual orientation. But it nonetheless is likely to promote a kind of voluntary integration in the inclusive command. In an essay just published in the Michigan law review, we argue that:
The benefits of the inclusive units would be threefold: amelioration (of currentdiscrimination), demonstration (that DADT is not necessary to preserve unitcohesion), and realignment of political allies and enemies (creating a commoncause for pro-gay legislators on the left and pro-defense legislators on theright). The proposal is dynamic, not static. The hope is that inclusive commandswould so effectively demonstrate the benefits of integration that, over time,increasing numbers of service members would opt for integrated units. Fromthere, the step to universal, mandatory integration of sexual minorities intothe armed forces would be smaller and more easily taken.The inclusive command idea is a particular example of two themes that we explore in a variety of contexts in our forthcoming book, Straightforward: How to Mobilize Heterosexual Support for Gay Rights:First, there are often valuable incremental strategies between seeming intractable dichotomies. And second, heterosexual allies often play a crucial role in effectuating these strategies.
You can find links to article and comments at:
http://balkin.blogspot.com/2005/02/asking-different-questions-in-dont-ask.html
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This seems like a good solution to the political issue, but could introduce organizational and cultural problems for the military. Soldiers are regularly transferred between units and I think this is part of the military's strategy for creating a unified military culture. If soldiers choose to be inclusive or exclusive, then two parallel cultures will emerge and they could even develop group-identity and rivalry. This could be ameliorated by including a "don't care" option, so that a significant number of soldiers pass back and forth between the two groups.
This could also be a problem if the military needs a particular person to do a particular job, but that person made a choice incompatible with the command structure. Perhaps it could be understood that the individuals who choose "don't care" will be given assignments that are more appropriate for their talents and consequently will get promoted faster.
I don't have a problem with this approach, but I see you're using a couple of possibly flawed assumptions- first, that a unit that accepts gays will perform demonstrably better than one that excludes gays, and second, that heterosexuals will be inclined to support gay rights in the military (or, in fact, in society in general). Thus far, I see that some liberal lawmakers and judges support gay rights, I don't really think it would pass a national referendum."Don't ask, DON'T TELL, don't pursue" would probably work better if the SECOND part was observed as well as the first and the third.
This issue seems very odd to me. I always thought of homosexuals as being open-minded, and never understood why they would want to enter the military.
The military gay issue was manufactured from thin air by religious conservatives who had nothing better to do. There have always been gays in the military - ever heard of Baron von Steuben ? In my time (Nam) we had them, ignored them (or made a joke), and everybody did his job. No problem.
The sensible military policy would be to ignore all statements by personnel regarding their sexual orientation. This would include gay stories as well as bragging by straight men about their conquests. Outward, disruptive behaviour by either straights or gays would result in disciplinary action, not discharge.
Among other things, the present policy allows anybody who wants out of the service to say that he is gay and receive a discharge without questions. In a serious war, this policy would have to be abandoned anyway, as it was in Korea and VietNam.
How about the gays who came back from Desert Storm, were decorated for a job well done, and then discharged for reasons of "military incompatibility."