I once heard an old Admiral comment on this subject. He said he had served with many Gay people and always found them to be good at what they did. But he did not want them on his ships.

His logic was if you had Gays on ships then relationships would develop and that would (not could, but would), in his experience, lead to 'love triangles'.

And he did not really care about that. He did care about Unit Readyness, though, and anything that detracted from that not acceptable. He felt that the US Navy existed to protect the US and its' intrests around the world and needed to be ready to fight at anytime, so ANYTHING that reduced unit readyness could not be allowed.

But Gays in any job but combat was OK with him. If someone is open and out they cannot be blackmailed by someone revealing what everyone knows.

I really don't know enough about the subject to make a comment on it one way or another, but I wanted to pass on what this fellow had said.