The gay bomb

It’s a scene straight out of a 1950s comic book. The American heroes, hardened by the horrors of war, set out to ravage their enemies without messy guns or nuclear warheads. Instead, they drop their most surprising, most secret, most dastardly of all weapons designed to weaken their opponent and render him unable to fight back: the “gay bomb.”

Funny, no?

It sounds like one of those old ideas we can write off as a silly relic of a simpler time. Like Dick and Jane or Betty Homemaker, a blast from the past that is nothing but funny in today’s more modern, more progressive, more thoughtful world.

Only, the gay bomb didn’t come from some Cold-War-blinded cartoon designer. Instead, it came out of the American military’s research and development – in 1994.
Less than 15 years ago, the U.S. Air Force Wright Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio, requested $7.5 million for the development of a so-called love bomb that when detonated would render the enemy combatants unable to fight because they would suddenly not be able to resist falling in love with one another.

The rationale was that widespread homosexuality would undermine enemy morale and fighting capabilities.

The idea of being able to avoid conventional wars through bombs that make our enemies attracted to one another was ridiculous, and the government never pursued the research. But still, the fact that as late as 1994 some people in our military could think that such a weapon was not only plausible but a good idea is disconcerting.

Yet perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising. After all, the gay bomb idea came about only one year after the infamous “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” law codified the military’s tradition of banning openly gay men and women from its ranks.

Both the bomb and the ban are symptoms of prejudice and outdated notions of masculinity and what it means to be a soldier.

Fortunately, someone had the good sense to recognize that the gay bomb was ridiculous. Now it is time that we do the same for the gay ban.

During his campaign, President Barack Obama supported repealing the controversial Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy, but Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said in March that the policy change might still take a while.

But that hesitance has made many Obama supporters uneasy considering that the original Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy resulted from an unhappy compromise after then-President Bill Clinton tried to follow through on his promise to allow homosexuality in the military.

At this point it is too early to tell whether Obama is really serious about repealing the homosexuality ban. But we can be certain that the issue is not going away.
The Don’t Ask Don’t Tell issue is the real gay bomb – the ticking time bomb that, if left unaddressed, will blow up in Obama’s face.