No Opt-Out For Opponents Of Gays In The Military

From Reuters courtesy of the Huffington Post news wire:

Congress voted in December to repeal the so-called "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy which allows gays to serve in the military only so long as they keep their sexual orientation to themselves. The Marine Corps has been one of the services most resistant to the change.

The new policy will not go into force until 60 days after the president, defense secretary and nation's top uniformed military officer certify that it can be implemented without affecting military readiness. The military is currently in the process of training service members about the new policy.

"Sir, we joined the Marine Corps because the Marine Corps has a set of standards and values that is better than that of the civilian sector. And we have gone and changed those values and repealed the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy," the sergeant told Gates during the question and answer session.

"We have not given the Marines a chance to decide whether they wish to continue serving under that. Is there going to be an option for those Marines that no longer wish to serve due to the fact their moral values have not changed?" he asked.

"No," Gates responded. "You'll have to complete your ... enlistment just like everybody else."

"The reality is that you don't all agree with each other on your politics, you don't agree with each other on your religion, you don't agree with each other on a lot of things," he added. "But you still serve together. And you work together. And you look out for each other. And that's all that matters."

More here.

A few observations.

If I understand correctly, some of the problem facing the Marines in particular is that much of their culture is based on humiliating any man who shows even the slightest hint of non-masculinity. The idea is to build up a social sense among Marines of being the biggest badasses in the world, and girly-men, from this point of view, are decidedly not big badasses. Because being gay is perceived as being extraordinarily non-masculine, it makes sense that allowing gays to openly serve would, like a freight train, run smack dab into this hyper-masculine cultural imperative.

Of course, history - think of the bisexual Spartan warriors and their great accomplishments - proves this cultural point of view to be completely wrong, and, of course, organizational cultures can be changed, which is exactly what's happening to the Marines and all other branches of the armed forces right now. In the end, Marines like the one quoted above will be relegated to the dustbin of history.

But I continue to be a bit perplexed by such attitudes. If the US Marine Corps is, indeed, the most hardcore group of badasses in the world, and I think they are, how is it that a few gay men serving openly among them can cause such distress? I mean, it's like, so what? You can chew veins and unleash death on a massive scale, but you're "uncomfortable" because a gay guy might see your penis in the shower? Yeah yeah, I understand the whole military cultural indoctrination thing, the whole sense of hyper-masculinity and all that, but it just doesn't seem to jibe with the notion of these intense warriors being unnerved by gay men. It's like seeing Arnold Schwarzenegger standing on a chair and freaking out over a mouse. It seems impossible.

The weirdest thing about the above linked article to me, however, is this Marine asserting as though it is common knowledge that "the Marine Corps has a set of standards and values that is better than that of the civilian sector." I don't know that I would say "better" standards, but I wholeheartedly agree if he actually meant "higher" standards--that's just self-evident. But to assert that the Marines have better values than civilians, all civilians, deeply disturbs me. How is this determined? Actually, such a notion cannot be determined because it is utterly subjective. Worse, it sets up the military as being somehow better than the people their sole purpose is to protect. And this is apparently what they're teaching Marines to believe, that they're better than the American people, and that's bullshit.

I mean, I'm grateful for their service and sacrifice, but the military's function is to protect civilization, which necessarily makes their role an ancillary one. That is, if civilization is worth protecting, its protectors can in no way be deemed to be better than the civilization they're protecting. It's kind of fucked up, especially when you couple it with the General McChrystal affair: I'm really starting to wonder if civilian control of the military is ultimately doomed.

I mean, once we've lost control of the military, it's all over.

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