Leadership is necessary. We need leaders who pay more than lip service to taking care of our soldiers - all of our soldiers. Of late, leadership has been sorely lacking. But I couldn't come to work everyday at SLDN, where in six years we have assisted more than 2,000 military members facing death threats, harassment and witch hunts, if I didn't have hope that the future will bring such courageous leaders to the fore. Although we made some mistakes, I believe the military has largely become a race-blind organization.
Sexual preference is another matter, however.
After all, the services are constitutionally prejudiced against a host of groups based on age, education, health and certain behaviors. In order to sustain a quality and cohesive force, the services discriminate against certain people not because it doesn't think fat, uneducated or old people are unpatriotic, but because based on more than 200 years of empirical experience with these and other groups, these cohorts don't best contribute to the service's demanding needs. Also keep in mind that the services focus on the harsh battlefield and not the values of a liberal society. Even though society may have become more tolerant of homosexuals, that tolerance should not have bearing on the military, which must continue to be highly disciplined in order to operate in an environment marked by austere living conditions and minimal privacy. The same arguments for discriminating against homosexuals, used to convince the Democrat-dominated 1993 Congress, apply today.