[T]he plainer truth of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is that it represents and clearly indicates that gays aren’t fighting for the right to “defend their country,” but are fighting for the right to go forth and kill foreigners in aggressive, hegemonic foreign wars, invasions, and occupations.
I am sympathetic, but I think we ought to be careful. I think most opponents of DADT are fighting for gays’ right to “defend their country.” It just turns out that much of the U.S. military’s actual activity is “to go forth and kill foreigners in aggressive, hegemonic foreign wars, invasions, and occupations.” Joining the Army to defend America is sort of like joining the World Bank to help the world’s poor. You’re probably making it worse. It is difficult, however, to decide how much blame we should lay upon those who willingly turn themselves over to the violent branches of state to do its largely immoral bidding. I don’t want to say that sincerely believing that one has enlisted to defend America absolves one of responsibility for the crimes one subsequently commits under orders. It’s not like trespassing, kidnapping, and murder aren’t trespassing, kidnapping and murder just as long as a nation-state is paying you to do it. But, at the same time, it really doesn’t seem fair to lay too much on 20 year-olds inhabiting a hyper-patriotic culture in which movie trailers make the Marines look awesome and the nobility of military service is rarely questioned. Contracting to do what the military tells you to do is a moral mistake we admire and enthusiastically encourage. To refuse this encouragement and admiration to the openly gay is to do wrong unjustly. Establishing equality of status within morally compromised institutions has the virtue of one mistake over two.