In a Wall Street Journal column (sub. req’d., of course) today, former Georgia Republican U.S. Rep. Bob Barr came out (no pun intended) in support of allowing gays and lesbians to serve in the U.S. military. In fact, he writes that supporting “opening” the services to homosexuals is a conservative act.

As a conservative Republican member of Congress from 1995 to 2003, I was hardly a card-carrying member of the gay-rights lobby.

BUT!

I have become deeply impressed with the growing weight of credible military opinion which concludes that allowing gays to serve openly in the military does not pose insurmountable problems for the good order and discipline of the services.

. . .

The fact is, equal treatment of gay and lesbian service members is about as conservative a position as one cares to articulate.

His reasons? Verbatim:

1. First, true conservative political philosophy respects the principles of individual freedom and personal privacy, particularly when it comes to what people do in private. The invasive investigations required to discharge a service member are an unconscionable intrusion into the private lives of American citizens. . . . A service member could be discharged for being overheard remarking that, “I can stay later today since my partner will be taking the dog for a walk.”
2. . . . [O]n a more practical level, the ban on gays openly serving in our armed forces is hurting a military that is stretched thin, putting further strain on an institution conservatives claim to love. . . . [I]n the process [the services] have lost over 1,000 service members in “mission-critical skills,” including 58 Arabic linguists. . . . [L]ifting the ban could increase the number of active-duty personnel by over 40,000.
3. . . . [T]he gay ban wastes money. . . . [T]he gay ban has cost taxpayers over $360 million, and even this figure did not include many of the actual costs of rounding up gays and lesbians, firing them and training their replacements.

He also takes Republican presidential candidates to task for not examining and changing their policy positions on gays in the military:

Asked about reconsideration of the don’t ask, don’t tell policy in favor of a more open and honest approach, the simplistic responses by several Republican presidential candidates left me — and I suspect many others — questioning whether those candidates really even understood the issue, or were simply pandering to the perceived “conservative base.”

Damn, yo. Gettin’ called out by your own homies. That’s harsh.

I don’t want to espouse a deterministic philosophy here, but maybe things do get better as time goes on.

The whole problem with this debate is that so many people seem to think that “don’t ask, don’t tell” keeps homosexuals from serving in the military. It does not. It prevents them from serving openly in the military. There are many, many current and former gay and lesbian military personnel — and the institution hasn’t crumbled, or even hiccuped, yet. And, considering other countries experiences with allowing homosexuals serve, I don’t think we need to continue arguing. The “ban” is stupid. Let’s get rid of it.