2003

2003

• Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell: Is the Gay Ban Based on Military Necessity?
  July 1, 2003

  Ten years after "don't ask, don't tell" was put in place there is more
  evidence that suggests lifting bans on homosexual personnel does not
  threaten unit cohesion or undermine military effectiveness.

• A History of the Service of Ethnic Minorites in the U.S. Armed Forces
  June 1, 2003

  U.S. military has repeatedly been forced to
  attenuate the divisions, antagonisms and distrust that have troubled American
  culture more broadly. This necessity
  has stemmed from the unique position of the armed forces as both a defensive
  and a “total” institution in American civic life.

• The Pentagon's Gay Ban is Not Based on Military Necessity
  January 1, 2003

  The evidence that advocates of discrimination invoke to support the
  plausibility of the unit cohesion rationale does not constitute
  scientifically valid data.

• Don't Ask, Don't Tell: Debating the Gay Ban in the Military
  January 1, 2003

  A definitive edited volume of lively debate, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell: Debating the Gay Ban in the Military presents the views of the leading scholars on sexual orientation and the military. This new and unprecedented anthology, published on the tenth anniversary of the establishment of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, breaks new ground on U.S. military readiness in a time of war. For the first time, this book brings together a critical mass of experts of different points of view to debate whether the U.S. military’s gay ban is based on military necessity or prejudice.

• A Modest Proposal
  January 1, 2003 | Aaron Belkin and Melissa Sheridan Embser-Herbert

  The justification for excluding acknowledged homosexuals from the U.S. military is the unit cohesion rationale, the notion that lifting the gay ban would undermine combat performance. As a growing body of evidence has challenged the plausibility of this argument, the ban’s supporters increasingly have justified exclusion by the preservation of heterosexual privacy in the barracks and showers. We argue that lifting the gay ban will not undermine heterosexual privacy.