Activism has always played a prominent role in the movement for gay civil rights. But now, with the Supreme Court set to hear a case in October deciding the question of whether the federal government can withhold funds to universities whose law schools deny access to military recruiters, the effect of overzealous gay activism has rightfully come into question.
The Supreme Court announced earlier this month that it would hear the appeal of Rumsfeld vs. Forum for Academic & Institutional Rights, pitting the Defense Department against a coalition of prominent law schools. At Yale, one of the institutions which brought the suit and where I am an undergraduate, I have seen the unfortunate effects of the otherwise well-intentioned gay activists' campaign to prevent the military from recruiting law students to serve in the JAG corps and in keeping ROTC off the college's campus, both because of the military's anti-gay, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy.
I agree, of course, that the military's policy undermines national security by expelling competent individuals, but I cannot bring myself to support an agenda aimed at hindering the armed forces' vital mission of recruiting talented individuals.
Advocates claim that their opposition to the military's presence is not only a moral statement against discrimination but more importantly will work to erode "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Yet since the Vietnam War, when many universities first banished the armed forces, the military has functioned rather well. Seeing that the decisions of individual colleges and law schools to ban recruiting has done nothing to alter the military's policy and shows no sign of affecting military decision making, what does it do?
The unfortunate result is that the people most affected by this posturing - the actual students who make enormous sacrifices to train for the officer corps - are being left out of the debate entirely. Whereas universities that have long prided themselves on providing the country's future leaders used to have a large officer training program in the first half of the century, currently only five students out of a Yale undergraduate class of nearly 5,000 are enrolled in such a program.
To make matters worse, they are often ostracized by liberal students and faculty members, who loathe the military for political reasons unrelated to the ban on service by out gays.
Oftentimes, the best strategy in any fight for gay equality is for people to simply come out of the closet. As homosexuality is an invisible trait, visibility is often the best antidote to ignorant homophobia.
Far more effective than banning military recruiters have been the ever more frequent criticisms of former service members who have since come out and decried "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." The military brass itself is far more likely to empathize with someone who once wore a uniform and risked their life than they are to heed the hectoring of a liberal faculty member.
By making homophobia the reigning issue in the debate over military recruitment, gay activists have fostered a form of group-think that necessarily compels all gay people - and all straight people who do not want to be thought of as homophobes - to support their cause. This tactic turns off many potential allies, who are equally supportive of gay rights and a strong national defense.
Sometimes issues affecting gay and lesbian Americans are more nuanced than morally absolutist activists would like them to be. While I may find "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" to be unjust, it is more important that my straight peers have the opportunity to serve their country and defend the freedoms that gay activists have also fought so courageously to enshrine.