You mean like… right now? Soldiers already share bathing facilities with gays all the time, Michael. Get on with it.

What I undeerstand from people like you is that U.S. soldiers are so weak, they don’t even need to fear the enemy: their own teammates frighten them!

Based on everything that follows it, it is abundantly clear that your first sentence is either a lie or a self delusion.

You’re a joke Michael, your hypocrisy knows no limits. Heterosexual men shower with gay men in public gyms, swimming pools, etc. throughout the world and there’s never been any problem with it. Its not going to be any different in the military. Military service members aren’t so namby pamby that they can’t put up with what civilians do every day.

I have no concern about any military member’s sexual orientation when there are adequate facilities for sleeping, bathing, etc., such as at any base in any branch. However, when in combat, close conditions exist that will leave military members in situations where they must use bathing facilities that have poor privacy.

Perhaps the last thing anyone needs to worry about is whether someone has to endure others viewing them as they shower, but I imagine the argument would sound entirely reasonable if it were looked at from the perspective of a woman.

For example, if all female military members were forced to share shower facilities and sleeping quarters with males, wouldn’t there be a public outcry? Wouldn’t there be some cases of abuse, where women were mocked, teased, or propositioned because they were forced to share accommodations with males? I’m sure it would happen, if it hasn’t already.

There was a ban on females in combat, which seems to have changed over the years. There were reasonable arguments in favor of this ban as well. One only needs to peruse the annals of history to find periods in which war, famine, and pestilence was so wide spread, that the population took years to recover. It isn’t wise for a society to send its female members into combat, when the only means by which a society can expect to rebuild itself depends on their protection.

The military should continue to ban homosexual men and any female from front-line combat positions. Any other job in the military would be fine if s/he were interested in serving and I would be grateful for that service.

Please don’t use the movie “300″ as any kind of evidence for what Spartans and Athenians were doing over 2,000 years ago.

Otherwise, I’d agree with your assessment that the pederastic model isn’t something we should look to for any kind of egalitarian relationship. It’s like Xenophon’s Oeconomicus, where the perfect wife is one you marry young and then virtually rear yourself.

Gays should serve in the military not because a Greek army segment thousands of years ago was mighty, but because today, thousands of years later, gays are equal human beings to straights and can be just as honorable, courageous, and strong as them.

Anyway, I have this real aversion to people who arrogantly tell us what constitutes a Real Man (or Real Woman, Real American, or Real Christian). His argument is essentially that a soldier, who of course is a man, has a right to be perceived of as a heterosexual (because only heterosexual men are Real Men). His argument is meaningless (a) because he doesn’t have a monopoly on what a Real Man is and (b) because it has nothing at all to do with national security or task cohesion.

I suppose it goes without saying that Lady Americans shouldn’t be soldiers at all, eh?

I’ll be waiting for the tearful confession after bust. It’s only a matter of time.