Six decades ago, President Harry Truman ordered that the Armed Forces be desegregated. No longer would there be separate military units for different people, sorted by the color of their skin. Instead, all soldiers were to be the same color: Army Green. All airmen were to be the same color: Air Force Blue. And so on across all our Armed Forces.

Armed Forces desegregation actually began in Arizona, where the Air National Guard’s commanding officer was a prominent social liberal: He and his wife later brought Planned Parenthood to Tempe. His later political book warned emphatically about the dangers of overpopulation and the need for population control. The officer in question eventually went into politics, continuing to espouse his principles of individual freedom and equality before the law: In 1964, he became the Republican Party’s nominee for President of the United States.

It is now 2007. Six decades after the Armed Forces were desegregated by race, the Armed Forces are segregated by gender orientation. Gays and lesbians need not apply. Many Americans ask if that policy should be changed. If you listened to the Republican Presidential debate, you heard only one answer: The military ‘Don’t ask. Don’t tell.’ policy was all right with them. After various bits of hypocritical nuancing, when it came to the real policy, the Republicans were all the same. Of course, if you are pursuing the Republican Presidential nomination, identifying yourself as a homophobic bigot is not a career breaker.

‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ has no legitimate function in the twenty-first century military of a civilized nation. To paraphrase a prominent Arizona politician, we need soldiers because they can shoot straight, not because they are straight.

To reach this end, ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ should be repealed. We already have clear regulations on non-consensual sexual relations, including non-consent arising from membership in the same chain of command, already in place to deal with irregular events. Those regulations should stand.

Of course, there will be objections to ending the gender inclination bar. They are wrong.

To be to the point, the Armed Forces are the Armed Forces of the United States. They exist to protect what is right about the United States. Correspondingly, there is a line beyond which the Armed Forces cannot pass, namely the line at which they would represent what is wrong about the United States.

Six decades ago, what was wrong with parts of the United States was the color line, the division of racial segregation, a line that the Armed Forces brought to an end. In a sense, we saw the triumphant conclusion of that change in 2000, when the Republican Presidential nomination was Colin Powell’s for the asking.

It is now 2007. One of several things that is wrong with the United States is the gender inclination line, the notion that we should have one set of rights and privileges for straight people, and another more limited set for gay people. That’s a rule that the Armed Forces should reject in its customs and regulations.

Six decades ago, the Armed Forces set a positive example for the rest of America. In 2007, it is time for our Armed Forces again to set an example for others to follow.

Elect me, and on this issue I will bring the Armed Forces into the 21st century.

For Libertarians uncertain of our chances for electoral success in the Presidential race, I should point out that our election campaigns now will frame us for the rest of this century, that Republican bigotry is overwhelmingly unpopular with the younger generation, and that most Democratic candidates were not very interested in taking a lead in a positive way on this issue. Some of you may be aware of the recent anti-gay-marriage referendum in one southwestern state, defeated, in which the over-30s were evenly divided, but the under-30-year-olds voted overwhelmingly (70-30) and in large numbers against the referendum. Those are our voters, waiting to be recruited to our party by a visible stand against bigotry and intolerance.

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George Phillies is a candidate for the Libertarian Party’s 2008 presidential nomination. His campaign web site is located at www.phillies2008.com. As a matter of course, Rational Review will publish, unedited, the submissions of libertarian presidential candidates. For more information, or for assistance, contact us at info@rationalreview.com.