How Other Nations Deal With Gays In The Military

Compliments of David Crary, here is how Israel, Australia, and Britain deal with the issue:

Israel

A nation in a constant state of combat readiness, Israel has had no restrictions on military service by gays since 1993.

Gays were permitted to serve even before then, but not in certain intelligence positions where, at the time, they were deemed possible security risks vulnerable to blackmail. Now, gays and lesbians serve in all branches of the military, including in combat.

Maj. Yoni Schoenfeld, a gay officer who is the editor of the military magazine, Bamahane, said there was little friction in the ranks related to gay soldiers.

He served as a combat soldier and as commander of a paratrooper company, and he said his sexual orientation — though known to fellow soldiers — was never an issue.

Gay jokes would sometimes surface, unusually not malicious, he said, while receptiveness to gays in combat units could vary.

Australia

In 1992, Anita Van Der Meer was threatened with discharge from the Australian navy for being a lesbian. She denied the allegation to save her job, and later that year the military's ban on gays and lesbians was lifted.

This spring, Van Der Meer marched with more than 100 other service members in Sydney's annual Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade under an Australian Defense Force banner.

Chief Petty Officer Stuart O'Brien, who joined the navy 19 years ago, said being openly gay has not been an issue, even when he was working alongside U.S. military personnel in Baghdad in 2006.

"They valued the work that I did, and that's all that it comes down to at the end of the day," O'Brien said.

Britain

British policymakers had been wrestling for years with whether to scrap a long-standing ban on gays in the military, but the pivotal decision was made abroad, by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France.

The court ruled in 1999 that Britain had violated the rights of four former service members who had been dismissed for being gay or lesbian.

There was significant opposition to the change among military officers.

Lord Alan West, former head of the Royal Navy and now Britain's terrorism minister, served before and after the ban was lifted.

"It's much better where we are now," West said. "For countries that don't do that — I don't believe it's got anything to do with how efficient or capable their forces will be. It's to do with other prejudices, I'm afraid."

... apparently militaries do not fall apart when soldiers are allowed to be themselves, but, then again, we are the United States, and what could the only superpower have to learn from all the other puny nations of the world? That is the argument, is it not? We don't need their [superior] healthcare systems and GOD forbid we ever learn to think for ourselves and join the rest of the western world in freeing our society from the tyranny of religion.