The “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, put in place during Bill Clinton’s Presidency, never made a lot of sense to me. Why does a person’s sexuality matter when it comes to putting his (or her) life on the line to defend this country?

These are the sort of issues that highlight the fact that I’m a right-leaning libertarian, not a “conservative”. I’m kind of on the outside on the gay marriage debate^[a], and I absolutely believe that anyone who wishes to serve this country should be allowed to do so — and they should be allowed to be open about their sexual preferences while doing so.

We already have codes of conduct for individuals in the military. As long as a military man (or woman) abides by those codes in public, I really couldn’t care less which gender they prefer to have sex with. Heck, if it comes right down to it, if all the participants are consenting adults, I don’t really care what combination of genders they want to have sex with. They’re serving (and protecting) our country, and, for that, they have my thanks, my respect, and my support.

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Gay Patriot has more on this topic (and he’s better at expressing his thoughts than I am, besides):

I’ve always supported a strong military, opposing restrictions, generally coming from well-meaning liberals, which decrease its effectiveness. And that’s how I see the ban on gays serving openly. It serves no purpose, save to placate those holding on to long discredited prejudices against gay people. And it deprives the military of qualified personnel.

Perhaps I’m more sympathetic to Lt. Choi’s outspokenness on this issue because, as a gay conservative, I see the benefits in being open about one’s sexuality. Coming out in right-of-center confabs has allowed me to see how my conservative confrères react to a gay man in their midst and to show that not all gay people subscribe to the politically correct orthodoxy of the far left.

1. Short version: Honestly, I’d rather we do away with heterosexual marriages and just force everyone into the “civil union” group as far as the law goes, but I could take it or leave it either way. I worry that legalizing gay marriages would open the door for lawsuits against clergymen who refused to perform the ceremonies, but, other than that, I have no problem with the idea of gay marriages being recognized by the government. I draw a very strict line between a legal marriage and a “religious” one. The former has no significance to me at all (if my wife hadn’t insisted that we be legally married, I would’ve been perfectly content just to have a purely religious ceremony), except for the legal benefits that it represents: easy method of defining next of kin, “family” for purposes of hospital visitations, etc.). Why would we want to deny anyone those things?

   Besides, what if two straight men are living together and just happen to be best friends (think Felix and Oscar), and their actual blood families are all gone (or simply estranged)? Why shouldn’t they be allowed to define themselves as family? Maybe this is just the influence that Joss Whedon has had on me over the years — his shows always seem to highlight the idea of building a family that isn’t actually “related” (the Scoobies, or the Serenity crew, for example), after all.

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