Most of the serious debate about the U.S. military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy revolves around questions of unit cohesion, morale, and command. They are empirical matters, not philosophical ones. The Military Times group has just released its latest survey of attitudes from a sample of its readership in active service. Over time the percentage of troops saying they oppose gays serving openly in the military has been declining, from 63 percent in 2003 to 51 percent in 2009. The share supporting gays serving openly has gone up six points, to 30 percent, and the share offering a neutral position has gone up even more. Follow the link and you can click through some interesting graphs of the data.

Surveys of active-duty personnel aren’t the only data worth examining, of course. They may be in a good position to speculate about the effects of changing the policy, but it is still a speculation. Examining the performance of other national militaries without service bans is important, too, but their experience may not be entirely applicable to ours. My own vote at the moment is for less heat and more light.