Fabricated out of thin air

A book as been written about how the military came up with the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy that Clinton signed in the early 1990s. It is an important book now that legislation has just been introduced to replace DADT with a law banning discrimination in the military based on sexual orientation. Apparently, it wasn't just a beast from Congress, senior military also had a hand in it. The short version: they freaked and let their prejudices rule over sound policy and sound psychology. Some aspects of the long answer:

The claim that gays in the military would ruin unit cohesion was fabricated out of thin air. It was used because they couldn't say their objection was due to religious and cultural bias. Put another way, straight soldiers had a "moral right" to not serve with open gays.

There was no empirical study that would indicate what would really happen. Many in the Military Working Group weren't sure what "sexual orientation" really meant.

Hearings into the policy were rigged -- no one in favor of allowing gays to serve openly were allowed to testify.

Military culture has a component of homoerotic desire. Refusing to allow gays to serve openly was to repress that desire. Note that gays were allowed to serve -- but not openly.

Some of the testimony was "passing the buck" -- senior military claiming that the ban was necessary because fresh recruits wouldn't serve with gays. That may not have been true in the 1990s and certainly isn't true today when younger people are a lot more accepting of gays than their elders.