Once again, the issue of gays in the military has arisen during a tough recruiting period and questions about the reserve strength of the armed forces. The New York Times reports that gay-rights groups have seen this situation as a potentially propitious moment to breathe new life into the debate, five years into the war on terror:

As the Pentagon’s search for soldiers grows more urgent, gay rights groups are making the biggest push in nearly a decade to win repeal of a compromise policy, encoded in a 1993 law and dubbed “don’t ask, don’t tell,” that bars openly gay people from serving in the military.

The policy, grounded in a belief that open homosexuality is damaging to unit morale and cohesion, stipulates that gay men and lesbians must serve in silence and refrain from homosexual activity, and that recruiters and commanders may not ask them about their sexual orientation in the absence of compelling evidence that homosexual acts have occurred.

The push for repeal follows years of legal setbacks, as well as discord among gay rights groups about how, or even whether, to address the issue. Now, rather than rely on the courts, advocates are focusing on drumming up support in towns across the nation, spotlighting the personal stories of gay former service members and pushing a Democratic bill in the House that would do away with the policy.

In fact, gays serve openly in the military now; they do it in Britain. American and British troops have served together in Afghanistan and Iraq without this causing damage to morale and cohesion. They also serve openly in the IDF, one of the finest fighting forces in the world, although their leadership could use a refresher course after Lebanon. Both armies work jointly with American forces, and 22 other nations also allow gays and lesbians to serve without hiding themselves.

Readers of CQ and I often disagree on this point. However, everyone should agree that we now employ one of the dumbest and most hypocritical policies ever devised: "don't ask, don't tell". This policy allows gays and lesbians to serve in the military -- one study puts their numbers at 60,000 -- as long as their orientation remains a secret. It's an implicit acknowledgement that gays can serve effectively in the forces as long as no one else finds out their secret. Somehow exposure transforms them into undesirables, even though their nature has not changed at all.

If gays and lesbians were the cause of degraded morale and unit cohesion, then that damage would occur regardless of whether they kept quiet or not. If the Pentagon argues that the revelation causes the damage, then the problem isn't the gays or lesbians, but the bigots in the ranks that suddenly find out about them. That sounds exactly like the problem that the Pentagon had when it considered desgregating the services after World War II, and they finally rejected the option of coddling the bigots.

So should we now. Perhaps wartime makes for a difficult circumstance for a policy change, but this war will likely be generational, and we need as much support as we can muster.

Britain has allowed gays to serve openly for years, and they still field strong military forces. In fact, the British turn to gay-rights groups to help them recruit for the British Navy. Israel can beat any force except ours and the British that dare fight them in open warfare. Obviously gays have not eroded their combat effectiveness. Why should we continue to keep able and willing men on the sidelines when we can use all of the otherwise-qualified volunteers we can get? Barry Goldwater said it best when he declared that the only consideration that mattered to him was whether soldiers could shoot straight. Let's stop playing hypocritical games and allow patriotic men and women to wear the uniform and defend the nation.

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