“The debate over gays in the military has been settled with a historic decision to allow them to serve openly, but big questions lie ahead about how and when the change will take place, how troops will accept it and whether it will hamper the U.S. military effort in Afghanistan and Iraq…

“Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness and a leading opponent of repealing the 1993 law, said Sunday that the certification process is a ‘sham’ because it will be done by three people who already have stated their support for the change: Obama, Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“Donnelly also believes that passage and implementation of the repeal legislation will lead to a wave of lawsuits by gay troops seeking, for example, more military benefits for same-sex partners.

“‘The story is just beginning,’ she said in an interview.”

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“The looming demise of the military’s ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ personnel policy doesn’t mean the end of two-tiered justice for gay or lesbian service members.

“For example, now that the Pentagon will finally be recognizing the existence of such service members in its ranks, it will also as a matter of law and logic be recognizing the existence of same-sex partners or same-sex spouses. But those folks are barred by the federal Defense of Marriage Act from receiving some of the benefits that opposite-sex partners or opposite-sex spouses would receive from the military.”

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“What about Service members who have reluctance to share living quarters or bathroom facilities with someone known to be gay or lesbian?

“The Pentagon report strongly recommends against segregated living or bathing facilities. As the report says, such segregation would “do more harm than good for unit cohesion, create a climate of stigmatization and isolation and be impossible to enforce or administer unless service members are required to disclose their sexual orientation” (and, says the report, many are not likely to do so). The report notes that some of these concerns are based on stereotypes of gays and lesbians (as “predators,” for example), which are false. ‘The reality is that people of different sexual orientation use shower and bathroom facilities together every day in hundreds of thousands of college dorms, college and high school gyms, professional sports locker rooms, police and fire stations and athletic clubs.'”

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“In pushing through the repeal of DADT, however, Gates and the military leadership confront a more fundamental challenge. For more than a generation, ever since 1973, America has had an all-volunteer professional military. The result is a military of unsurpassed skill. But it has also brought a belief widespread in the officer corps that the military is not merely different from American society at large, but also superior to it in its regard for truth, honor, loyalty and discipline—a conviction that too easily spreads to disapproving views about civilian society’s ‘values.’ Any significant contact with the military reveals that…

“Precisely for that reason, it could be argued, the decision to repeal DADT is a good one. It reminds the military that they should be representative of the society they are sworn to defend. But only an optimist would expect the decision to be implemented without a struggle.”

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“‘Well, the arguments against it, John, they come from folks like the commandants of the U.S. Marine Corps,’ Buchanan said. ‘You are trying to impose the values of Fire Island on Paris Island. These are 19-year-old Marines. They’re very macho guys. Many of them are Christian traditionalists and you got these secular values and you bring open homosexuals into the barracks with these guys — it will be hellish.’…

“Buchanan was dour on the values of American society as a whole.

“‘I don’t think time is on the side of Western civilization, if you want to know,’ Buchanan said. ‘This battle may be won like many others, and I think society is going downhill.'”

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“Others feel we’re not ready for a gay president, citing the fear and loathing unleashed by the election of the first black president. ‘Can you imagine how much a gay president would have to overcompensate to please the macho ninnies who control our national debate?’ Bill Maher told me. ‘Women like Hillary have to do it, Obama had to do it because he’s black and liberal, but a gay president? He’d have to nuke something the first week.’

“Fred Sainz of the Human Rights Campaign fretted to his husband that a gay president would be anticlimactic.

“‘People expect this bizarro and outlandish behavior,’ he told me. ‘We’re always the funny neighbor wearing colorful, avant-garde clothing. We would let down people with our boringness and banality when they learn that we go to grocery stores Saturday afternoon, take our kids to school plays and go see movies.'”

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