At Stake in the Battle Over Gays in the Military

James Carroll is a novelist and writer for the Boston Globe, where this column first appeared, 1/4/2000.

Gays in the military: Of all the issues raised in the recent round of presidential debates, nothing threw sparks like this one.

First Bill Bradley and Al Gore categorically affirmed their intention to open the ranks of the services to homosexuals, with Gore's further assertion that he would appoint only military chiefs who agree with the policy. He later backed down from that, saying he would not require of the brass an a priori litmus test.

Then the Republicans, in rare unison, gleefully denounced the idea, amazed that once again the Democrats had handed them this spiked club of an issue. Voters could be forgiven a feeling of deja vu.

The early liberal hope that the presidency of William Clinton might initiate an era of humane social change was dashed when he first stated his intention to eliminate antigay discrimination in the armed services and then backed down from it. As president, Clinton never assumed the authority proper to the commander in chief, a failure that undercut him in his most important task--nuclear arms reduction. That failure began here.

It was one thing when a junior sailor publicly declined to salute Clinton as he boarded a ship, but the same insult was played out at the other end of the chain of command when the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colin Powell, publicly declined to implement the president's order to fully integrate gays into the military.

The corollary of the so-called compromise of "Don't ask, don't tell" was the brass saying to the president of the US, "Don't tell us, we'll tell you." Perhaps ashamed of his own youthful war resistance and apparently intimidated by the warrior caste's machismo mumbo-jumbo, Clinton bowed. A river separates the Pentagon from the White House. From then on Clinton's blood was in the water.

Conservative critics faulted Clinton for advancing the antifamily agenda of a gay "interest group," while his liberal critics faulted him for bringing up gay rights when so many other more "important issues" were on the agenda, like health care reform. I believed at the time, and believe still, that Clinton's profound commitment to civil rights gave him no choice but to redress the injustice represented by America's institutionalized discrimination against men and women because of sexual preference.

Clinton's initial instinct that there was no more important issue than this one of basic justice was exactly right. What was wrong was his inability to stand up to Powell.

How ironic, therefore, that Gore found it necessary to back off from the powerful assertion he had made on the issue of gays in the military, while at the same time he felt obliged to offer incense at the altar of Colin Powell because an aide had dared refer to the general's usefulness as a fig leaf covering the GOP's racial politics.

Gore had said he would do for gays in the military what Harry Truman had done for blacks. Can anyone imagine Harry Truman, confronted with a demurring Colin Powell, as Clinton was, or a whining Powell, as Gore was, deferring to the self-iconic general?

Gore is, of course, right to invoke the Truman analogy, and here is hoping he more fully recalls what the man who fired Douglas MacArthur was capable of. ("With deep regret," Truman's statement began, "I have concluded that General of the Army Douglas MacArthur is unable to give his wholehearted support ...")

Justice for Americans who happen to be gay is not the only thing at stake here. Equally important is whether or not "wholehearted support" of national values can be expected of the American armed forces. The same slogans now used against gays--"the primacy of mission," "unit cohesion," "commander's discretion," "the morale of a fighting force," "combat camaraderie"--were used in the late '40s against blacks and in the '80s against women.

Today's soldiers and sailors reluctant to serve shoulder to shoulder with homosexuals are the progeny of racist and sexist soldiers and sailors who were told to get over it or get out.

Racist and misogynist traditions of the military were officially disavowed, despite the "morale" problems, not only because the civil rights of blacks and women were at stake but because in a democracy a military culture that fails to evolve in synchrony with the civilian culture inevitably becomes a threat to that democracy.

The American principle of "civilian control" is about more than who is ultimately in charge of the guardians of the nation. It is also about whether the attitudes of those guardians are firmly rooted in the civil culture of the nation. Nothing would be more dangerous than the separate evolution of a martial elite that regarded itself as morally superior to the "decadent" civilian population it was supposed to protect--whether that decadence were defined by interracial marriage, careerist females, or the openly gay.

America's nobility lies in its having found ways to expand the dream of equality in every generation. The nobility of this nation's fighting force, likewise, lies in its having found ways to defend that dream of equality for all--not by seeking to be exempt from it, but by embodying it.

The argument over gays in the military, therefore, is over nothing less than whether this country will continue to be worthy of the name America.