When will President Obama stop “reaffirming his commitment” to ending legalized discrimination against those who by chance of the “natural lottery” happen to have a minority sexual orientation, and actually do it? Of course sexual orientation falls on a continuum, there is no “different” because that assumes an actual standard, any reasonable person couldn’t disagree with that. We shouldn’t naturalize some arbitrary referent because we all fail that criterion. But let’s make it simple: “Don’t ask don’t tell” is the policy implication of a prejudice against gay people who don’t conform to some standard.

What is prejudice? I think prejudice is the acceptance of stereotypes. We group individuals based on some cultural (or religious, societal) and greatly overly simplified characteristic. We often construct characteristics from whole cloth or imbue some inconsequential fact with great import. Whites stereotyped blacks and based this grouping on a biological fact that didn’t exist. Blacks, as a group, were never dumb, violent, uncontrollable, etc. I think the same is true of the military’s policy of discrimination against homosexuals. It is based not on reality, but on the fictional world created by our stupid stereotypes.

The primary argument in support of this prejudice surrounds the issue of readiness. Unit morale will be negatively affected by the open inclusion of gay and lesbian service people. But this is foregrounded by various stereotypes. Gay men will be sexually aroused, almost uncontrollably, and this will create tension. Heterosexuals will be uncomfortable in the presence of homosexuals and this will affect morale. Linked to this, homosexuals may become the victims of hate crimes because of heterosexual discomfort. And, by extension, homosexuals will be the perpetual victims. There are almost certainly more stereotypes operating here, but I think these are the most determinative.

So let’s look at them. The first one relies on an age old assumption about the heightened libidos of homosexuals. They simply cannot control themselves. One might ask how gay men function in society at all! This is silly right. It is an outdated stereotype. Interestingly, the same one was used to justify the racist violence of the Ku Klux Klan post-Civil War: they were defending women, and by that they meant the white “virginal” Victorian ideal, from the uncontrollable sex drives of black men. Indeed, gay men will be in situations with many men, and lesbian women in situations with women, but are we to believe that they are incapable of controlling themselves? That is the crux. That is the stereotype.

The second justification assumes that heterosexuals are incapable of evolution, or that we haven’t, societally, evolved beyond our dislike of those who are different from us. There is a (massive!) grain of truth to this, of course, because we aren’t as rational as we like to believe. However, this raises an interesting question. Aren’t members of the military supposed to be disciplined, a cut above the rest? If, therefore, the justification in question is correct, then our assumption that members of the military are the finest is manifestly false. They are not; they cannot control themselves, and they are driven by their hatred for and fear of the Other just as everyone else is. I don’t believe this to be true. Societal consciousness is evolving, and there’s truth to the assumption about the discipline of servicemembers.

Accordingly, there may be hate crimes, but to the extent that a) unit morale will truly be that impacted and b) we need to intervene, through separating homosexuals from the military, to “save” the victims? Furthermore, despite the stereotype, I think homosexuals are capable of defending themselves (was my sarcasm subtle enough?), and that most heterosexual members of the military will not simply join in the hate. They will do the right thing and challenge this irrational prejudice.

This might be complicated by the staggeringly high numbers of sexual violence against women in the military. The presence of women causes problems because some service people are simply incapable of controlling themselves, like their civilian counterparts. Would homosexuals indeed become victims of violence? Let’s leave that aside because I believe this is a cultural phenomenon, external to the military but intensified within the military. It can be changed.

Here’s the truth, the literature tells us that social change occurs when the relevant institutions accept the progress. If they reject it, the change fails. This is the case with “don’t ask don’t tell.” Society clearly favors getting rid of this archaic policy, but until the military steps up, the policy will stand. The military is a bureaucratic monster, with its own logic, like the federal government. However, it is a composition of individual women and men. So, endogenously, internal to the machine, change can occur from the inside out, as it were. We’ve seen that the counter-arguments are based on stereotypes, and who can accept that?

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