I guess I'm referring more to the physical attacks and exclusionary practices. You should justifiably kick a person out of the military, or exclude from specific duties, for being disruptive or damaging in some way to morale, but not simply for being a homosexual. That argument is certainly an old chestnut by this time, I would hope. At the very least, I would hope that military commanders would have the same common sense Eisenhower displayed when he found out about the homosexuality of one of his staff, but looked the other way and didn't take any action.

On the group morale issue, a good analogy might be my son's high school football team. They're very tough with each other, and toss around the words 'fag' and 'gay' all the time, but they'd never beat up or kick a teammate out for actually being gay. Nor would it hurt overall team morale. They've simply evolved with societal views that have gone past that point. It's just not nearly as big a deal in 2001 than it was when you or I were in high school.

When I see Egyptian police rounding up dozens of gays and tossing them in jail - simply because they're gay - my reaction is that I don't won't that kind of backwards mentality in my society. That's the past, and it was primitive and wrong.