Well, 13 is a small sample size, but I would be surprised if having queers openly in the armed forces would harm anything. After all, Israel has queers in the armed forces and they are still on the map.
This is a complete surprise and an incredibly unexpected turn of events. :dry: I mean, seriously. People who opposed this should have opened a history book; In ancient Greece, homosexuality in the military was encouraged. In fact, certain city-states (Thebes and Sparta, both well known for their strong military) placed couples next to each other in the field of battle to encourage teamwork and acts of valor. But, you know, if gay men served openly in the military (a group so close-knit many soldiers admit to already knowing their comrades' sexuality anyway) it would destroy the very foundation of a troop. Because that's how us gay people function.
No surprise, since this has never been a problem in the Netherlands or other countries who've never had such ludicrous laws.
honestly, the right wing white supremcist anti-semites using the military to recruit people into anti-goverment militias is a greater threat than gay people, because it is an ACTUAL problem that is happening. The funny thing is, if you actually pay attention to the mannerisems of all the pundits and politicians who were whining about the repeal of DADA, the interesting reality was they sound and act more gay than the gay soldiers themselves, going by the very stereotypes these politicalhacks were using agianst gay people.
While the results are believable, the fact that the survey was administered to 553 individuals and only had 13 respondents makes this a useless study. There is way too small of a response rate. It makes for far too small a sample size to be reliable and leave far too much potential for bias. The people that responded could likely just be people who were already passionate about DADT being repealed before it ever was.
Well, looking at how it worked in other countries is usually a good place to start... Effects of the 1992 Lifting of Restrictions on Gay and Lesbian Service in the Canadian Forces: Appraising the Evidence | Palm Center
But if I'm not mistaken, the interviews with high-ranking individuals was only a small part of the study, which also included analysis of documents, articles, other research, and so forth. I think the 553 were specifically people who were known to be wholly against the repeal of DADT, so it makes perfect sense that these bigots wouldn't want to respond, because they'd have to admit they were full of shit. What I think is interesting is that 13 people who were strongly opposed were courageous enough to admit they were wrong. I agree there are methodological issues in using the interviews as a primary source, but it sounds like there was adequate information from other sources to justify the conclusion. And you can bet your ass that if there were any issues, the Republicans would have dug them up and highlighted them in this election... and the fact they haven't probably says something. I wonder if we can next expect a plank in the 2016 GOP platform advocating racial segregation and legalizing the keeping of slaves. They've already gone so far backward with their views on women and maintained their bigotry toward gays that it wouldn't surprise me.