McChrystal's Social Liberalism and the Integration of Gays in the Military

McChrystal's Social Liberalism and the Integration of Gays in the Military
By Marc Ambinder

The fact, revealed in Rolling Stone, that Gen. Stanley McChrystal voted for President Obama may well have been a planted nugget designed to show how receptive McChrystal was to Obama's worldview. But several people who worked for, and continue to work for, Gen. McChrystal say that it's true. McChrystal told his subordinates about his ballot choice in November of 2008. More surprisingly, this choice did not surprise them. McChrystal was a hard core operator, aggressive as hell, a JSOC ninja -- but he was also a social liberal who tolerated, nay, welcomed gay people into his inner circle, who disdained Fox News, and who grew increasingly frustrated with his reputation as Dick Cheney's hired assassin.


Maybe McChrystal is unique in the special forces (SOF) community, but I tend to think not. In fact, having spent quite a bit of time recently with current and former special forces soldiers, I find that McChrystal's views on gays seem to be the rule rather than the exception. Given the traditional outline of the gays-in-the-military debate, one might think that the special forces soldiers, guys from traditional military families who spend unusual amounts of time in close quarters, would be the most opposed to having gays serve openly. My admittedly limited experience suggests that this is not the case. As one former member of a special missions unit put it to me recently, "It's really about competence. If you're competent, it doesn't matter who you are." And then, switching instantly from an analytical posture to a machismo mode, he said, "If a guy saves my ass, he sure as hell can look at it."
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But the two cultures can co-exist. It seems as if they already do, informally. People who are gay, and who are competent, and who have been tabbed, are accepted. And no one is toning down their language; discipline and morale aren't suffering. It's the lesson from South Park: there's "gay," and then there's gay. Outside of the military, we are more careful with such language, and that's probably a good thing -- it certainly is for younger kids.

No doubt there will be genuine anxiety among many soldiers about the prospect of serving with gays. No doubt that gays will be genuinely anxious about the prospect of facing real bigotry. But in the special forces community, a model of acceptance seems to already exist.


Read more:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/06/mcchrystals-social-liberalism-and-the-integration-of-gays-in-the-military/58663/