‘The reputation of manliness, which we know to be an important component of military honor, is in practice incompatible with the imputation either of homosexuality or of weakness and cowardice’

“This is not, of course, to say that homosexuals are weak or cowardly–only that the reputation of manliness, which we know to be an important component of military honor, is in practice incompatible with the imputation either of homosexuality or of weakness and cowardice. Now presumably an argument for the armed forces’ being required to accept gay recruits is that it doesn’t have to mean this, and that this simple reality is merely the product of custom and convention and no essential part of the moral and emotional equipment of men capable of nerving themselves to face combat. Possibly they are right. But what if they are wrong? Is there any way to find out without taking a real risk with national security? Are the advocates of gays in the military prepared to say, fiat justitia, ruat caelum?” —James Bowman arguing against repealing DADT in the Weekly Standard in what’s been dubbed “The Worst Argument You’ve Ever Read For Banning Openly Gay People From the Military”. Bowman described his own argument as: “There are sound reasons–unbigoted ones–for our policy on gays in the military.”

Because we all know what it means to be a manly soldier.