DADT

I am not gay. That is one thing that I can tell you without any reservation or question on my part. The very idea of being gay pretty much takes the wind out of my sails like nothing else could (if you know what I mean). It is gross for me to even think about.

This is why I don’t dislike gays, or in any way consider gayness to be a choice. I could no more choose to be gay than I could choose to be short. I suspect that the same is true for most gay people – they didn’t choose to be gay, because I don’t think that you can choose something like that. I certainly could not – there is just no way. Yuck-O.

That being said, gayness is sort of the essential libertarian dream – two consenting people engaging in an activity that they consider to be mutually beneficial, that harms no other person in any way, and what anyone else thinks about it be damned.

That I couldn’t be gay, and that I consider the concept to be sort of gross, does not cause me to look down on gay people any more than I look down on people who eat raw oysters on the half-shell (another activity that I consider really, really gross). I’ve known a bunch of gay people, and if there was anything that was remarkable about them, as a group, it was that they were really quite, well, unremarkable. They were just people. Totally normal in every way except for who they went to bed with at night. They were each unique, just like everyone else (heh), and possessed a wide range of personalities and mannerisms – just like everyone else.

Yeah, I’ve known feminine gay men who were very light in their loafers and spoke with a lisp about fashion and interior decorating (but this guy isn’t going to be enlisting for military service, now is he?). I’ve also known one gay man who was one of the manliest men I’ve ever met, a CEO of a large company, who hunted and fished and was just like one of the guys – except for he went home with one of the guys at the end of the day. Forget the last part, I’d share a foxhole with that man any day.

My point is this – IF there is a problem with gays in the military, I do not believe that it will be the gays that are causing it. IF that is the case, then gay people should not be punished for the problems being caused by being forced to live in secrecy and with the fear of being “discovered.” The problem lies with those causing the problem, not with gay people, so lets make sure we are punishing the right people, here, can’t we?