Date: 28 July 1993 From: citizens@cscns.com (Citizens Project) Subject: time to add gays to the roster of players on the U.S.A. team X-Copyright: Copyright (c) 1993 by Ed Ashworth. This material may be freely copied and distributed for noncommercial purposes provided that this notice remains intact. Commercial use of this material requires prior written permission from the author. X-Disclaimer: THIS MATERIAL DOES NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF CITIZENS PROJECT. IT IS PROVIDED SOLELY AS A SERVICE TO OUR PARTICIPANTS. The following editorial appeared 24 July 1993 in the _Denver Post_. It is electronically reprinted here with permission from the author. ---->8-----cut here----->8-----cut here----->8-----cut here----->8---- IT'S A GOOD TIME TO ADD GAYS TO THE ROSTER OF PLAYERS ON THE U.S.A. TEAM by Ed Ashworth I'm not homosexual. God help me if I were and pursued a military career. The horror stories in Randy Shilts's book, "Conduct Unbecoming," have the ring of truth. I can even add one. When I was chief engineer on a Navy fleet oiler back in the '60s, the commanding officer, a four-striper, of a sister oiler was reputed to have been summarily relieved of command solely because he invited groups of young enlisted men to his beach home in Long Beach. It was obvious to me that the captain's aim was to build morale and show that, however onerous and dangerous shipboard life was, the "old man" cared. Even scuttlebutt did not hint at any sexual proceedings between the captain and the young sailors. Nevertheless, we lifers understood that this married, middle-aged captain's efforts in behalf of his men were unusual. And unfortunately, the traditional, conservative, military mind-set tends to quail at any event out of the ordinary. So, we were not greatly surprised when this good captain was sacked for his temerity. Not all military types, however, can be forced into a reactionary world view all the time. To the surprise of many, Barry Goldwater said, in effect: "Who should care about a man's sexual orientation as long as he can shoot straight?" Not me! On cruises lasting up to six months, what time I had to ponder sex was devoted to my own miserable state of involuntary celibacy. I can't ever remember wondering if there were gay men in my snipes (engineers) gang of 80 souls. Statistically, there probably were one or two. If so, I appreciate their hard work. The Uniform Code of Military Justice that became law in 1950 criminalizes sodomy even within marriage, adultery and, in some cases, fornication - and these remain punishable offenses to this day. It would be interesting to know the effect on our military readiness if these provisions were enforced across the board instead of selectively against homosexuals. Laws designed to coerce career military men who happen to be homosexual to pretend to a life of celibacy characteristic of a Catholic priest to avoid being discharged without honor under the Code means we have left the world of the rational and entered the la-la world of the political. Carrying the irrational to new frontiers is the imagined influence of gays on the so-called male bonding dynamic that supposedly is critical to combat efficiency. I doubt this kind of bonding is limited to males. But let's say it is. I think male bonding is important to combat readiness, but it likewise has nothing to do with gays. In my first years as a high-school wrestler at a Catholic boys' boarding school, I was surprised at the amount of locker room innuendo about the drop-the-soap game or fantasies about bashing transvestites who did their thing in a far suburb of New Orleans. It eventually dawned that what I was hearing were brother adolescents voicing their uncertainty about their own sexual orientations. I have heard the same banter from adult men, both military and civilian. My mind flashes on Shakespeare's quote, "Methinks thou doth protest too much!" It is so absurd as to be humorous that the presence of a homosexual sailor or officer of either sex would interfere with male bonding in any military situation in which I've ever been involved. And I have lived amongst the military all my life; my late father was a Navy blue-water mariner for 30 years. To envision a gay man coming on to the militantly heterosexual, heavy-duty macho sailors I have known - thus offending and frightening them - is to imagine the ultimate absurdity. I'm convinced it is characteristic that, except for an insignificant number of flamboyant types, gays just want to be left alone to do their jobs and unobtrusively seek out birds-of-a-feather. While male bonding contributes to combat efficiency, the important factor that reduces its intensity is absence of unit personnel stability - not the presence of low-profile gays. Even under ideal circumstances, not all of us heterosexuals will bond. Some of us despise each other. The Anglo-Saxon word for "love" is an umbrella term covering everything from love of country to pedophilia. Other languages have specific words to define the different emotions that we lump together within a single word. Male bonding is one of these forms of love, although it is not fashionable to characterize it as such because all kinds of love are identified with sexual love in our polarized macho/feminist society. Consequently, males must be content to merely feel the emotion and not to verbalize it even to those others with whom one has bonded - at least, not while anyone is sober enough to remember anything that was said. Too overt an acknowledgement could cause us to become suspect of being "queer" in our own eyes or those of others. In civilian life, where I've served as a national officer of Mensa and as the financial officer of my church, I was impressed by the reliability and the quiet, efficient way our gay members assisted me. I'd like to make a case for violence being the ultimate obscenity, not love, whether the latter is expressed sexually, by non-sexual bonding, by appreciation of one's fellow men and women, or even just by being very glad we are Americans. As a Vietnam-era Army sergeant said to a platoon of new draftees: "When I look at you, I don't see black, brown, white or yellow. All I see is green." It seems like this is a good time to add not only women but gays to the sergeant's list. After all, aren't all American citizens by definition players on the U.S.A. team? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ed Ashworth, who lives in Aurora [CO], is a retired Navy lieutenant commander.