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Originally Posted by Goblin Tears
Still seems strange though. I mean, considering that perspective, something as simple as a personality clash could disrupt a 'team' mentality in a group. People have their differences and conflicts in any group situtation, sexual orientation is just one of many MANY things that could cause dissent, so it seems silly to single it out. As for people using DODT to get out of honouring their contract...well, that just shows it's ridiculous as well as abused.
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The main biases that we have in the military are all based on things that can't be hidden, for obvious reasons... mainly skin color and gender. But there can't be a DADT policy on skin color and gender. If there could be, I guarantee you the military would adopt it.
What's important to understand is that there is and always will be a myriad of factors behind team decisions. But what's more important than that is the fact that the bias that may be behind leadership decisions is far more affecting. Lowly bottom-end enlisted grunts can hate each other all they want but they still have to follow their superior's orders. But when the people giving the orders are biased, then you can see how this would be both dangerous for the affected persons and for the trust of leadership and the entire team as well. And it goes all the way up through the ranks.
It's bad enough that the military can ultimately only be reactive when it comes to dealing with race and gender biases, but at least the DADT policy does some good in regards to having some measure of control about how much more potential for abuse of leadership and its affecting factors is added to the equation.
Ultimately, it sucks that we even need to be at a point where DADT is necessary, but I wouldn't be so quick to single out DADT as a reason so much as it is a compromise near a milestone of progress. We're not quite there yet, but protesting DADT is a misappropriation in my opinion.
In this military case, you need to change the people, then you can change the rules. Doing it the other way around may work for the rest of society, but when it comes to the military, it's different.