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In civilian life, support for gay rights follows a pretty clear demographic trajectory: younger generations are more favorably inclined than their elders. That’s led many to presume that the same would hold true for the military. But according to the results of an exhaustive military study released today, there’s substantial support for repealing the legal ban on open gay military service — and perspectives on overturning “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” don’t clearly break down along demographic lines.
Check out Appendix H of General Carter Ham and Pentagon General Counsel Jeh Johnson’s report on repealing the ban, which you can access here. Most respondents generally were fine about getting rid of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”: about 70 percent said lifting the ban would have no serious impact into how they did their jobs. A wide majority of troops, 62.3 percent, said getting rid of the law wouldn’t change their decisions to continue serving. Only 10.3 percent of surveyed troops said maintaining the ban was more important to them in deciding to remain uniform than the desire “to serve and defend my country.”
In many survey questions — and there are over 100, many with sub-questions — the demographic gap either wasn’t so wide or didn’t neatly correspond to age. Asked how it affected unit morale to serve alongside a comrade believed to be gay, 56 percent of the youngest troops surveyed, ages 18 to 24 years old, believed it either not to matter or lacked the basis to judge. The same was true of 53.1 percent of the oldest, ages 53 and up.
Youth and experience found common ground on whether knowing a unit member is gay mattered for performance in combat. Sixty-two percent of 18-to-24 year-olds said they couldn’t tell or it didn’t matter, and 59.1 percent of the eldest troops agreed. Similarly, only 23.1 percent of 18-to-24-year olds said repealing the ban would make it more it more difficult to lead gay troops into combat, and a near-identical minority of the eldest, 24.9 percent, said the same thing. Over 48 percent of the oldest troops said working with gay comrades in a post-repeal military wouldn’t affect their own motivations to serve. That’s almost identical to the 49-percent plurality of 18-to-24 year olds who agree.
When it came to on-base living, a wide plurality of the eldest servicemembers, 40.2 percent, said they’d “get to know” a same-sex couple stationed at the same base “like any other neighbors.” The same is true of a 43.2-percent plurality of the youngest troops.
To be sure, in several cases, the youth are more accepting of open gay service by clear margins. One question, for instance, asks how troops considered a suspicion that their commander is gay to impact how well their units performed. Overall, 57.7 percent of respondents answered “Not At All” or “No Basis To Judge.” Broken down by age, that number went up to 60.3 percent among 18-to-24 year-olds, compared to 50.5 percent for troops 53 or older.
How’d their morale fare under a gay commander? Over 63 percent of 18-to-24-year olds said their units’ morale wasn’t impacted or they couldn’t tell, while a mere 50.6 of their 53-and-up elders agreed. Accordingly, 49.3 percent of the elders said having a gay commander affected morale to some degree, compared to only 36.7 percent of 18-to-24-year olds. But 51.6 percent of the younger cohort said the morale impact of a gay commander was “mostly negative,” compared to only 39.7 percent of the eldest.
The expected demographic gap also didn’t show up in some areas where older people are generally perceived to be less comfortable with gays and lesbians. Asked what they’d do if assigned to share quarters with a gay colleague, a plurality of 33.2 percent of 53-and-ups said they’d “take no action,” while a slightly smaller plurality of 18-to-24 year-olds, 30.9 percent, said they’d similarly go along. Similarly, if assigned to “share bathroom facilities with an open bay shower” with openly gay colleagues, a plurality of 32 percent of the eldest servicemembers would “take no action,” a plurality that dips slightly to 29.3 percent among the youngest.
And that’s where variances of perceived fairness in a post-“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” military become really interesting. About 38 percent of the eldest troops believe military leaders will have difficulty in upholding “high standards of military personal conduct” if the ban is junked. But only 32.9 percent of the youngest troops believe that — a vote of confidence in the brass from the youth.
There’s a lot in this demographic breakdown, and much more than just the age question. (Lest I be accused of cherry-picking, I’m embedding the entire appendix below.) As Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Admiral Mike Mullen, supporters of repealing the ban, said at their Pentagon press conference this afternoon, around 30 percent of troops overall reported discomfort with overturning the ban, a position Gates said was “not an insurmountable barrier to successful repeal” but which he went out of his way to respect, urging politicians and commentators not to project their own politics onto the troops.
The Senate Armed Services Committee will hold hearings Thursday and Friday on repealing the ban, allowing the service chiefs — whom Gates said are “less sanguine” about repeal than the study finds overall — a chance to air their own concerns. While there might be 99 problems with finding the votes to get rid of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” a discrepancy between how old and young troops feel about it ain’t one.
Appendix H_Service Member Survey Items by Age
Photo: U.S. Army
