[Alter Kaker]

They want an openly gay military where no closet is needed.

In Israel, you can be openly gay and serve in the IDF. You're not, of course, allowed to sexually harass your fellow soldiers, or fraternize. You do that, you wind up in the brig. I don't think it's about approving or disapproving of their lifestyle -- it's just a question of defending the country.

[tobyhill]

There is more potential for such openness to become problematic for everyone.

[fr_freak]

In Israel, you can be openly gay and serve in the IDF. You're not, of course, allowed to sexually harass your fellow soldiers, or fraternize. You do that, you wind up in the brig. I don't think it's about approving or disapproving of their lifestyle -- it's just a question of defending the country.

Israel does a bunch of things because they have to, not always because it is the ideal thing. For instance, I recall that the Israeli army had some problems with mixing men and women as front line troops, because men would get themselves killed trying to protect the women. I imagine that Israel has corrected that problem. They may have decided that the manpower boost from accepting openly practicing homosexuals outweighs the amount of disruption that it may cause, and they may yet again decide to change the policy later if that theory proves not to be true.

The US is not Israel, and the US military is not under the same constraints, nor the same mission parameters as the Israeli military. We can afford to do things the ideal way, at least for now. One glaring difference is that the US generally expects its military to be deployed and the fighting done overseas, whereas the Israelis have the fighting literally on their front doorstep on a regular basis, and it is not unreasonable for them to expect that Israeli civilians may have to fight as well at some point. So, if you expect your civilians might have to fight for the country's survival, I suppose there isn't much point in denying them military training.