I Know We're Not Supposed to Ask. But Somebody Needs to Start Telling. NOW.

The latest preposterous development in the uphill battle for gay and lesbian patriots to serve in the military without compromising their personal ethics: a suggestion that, if "Don't Ask/Don't Tell" is repealed, GLBT personnel would get their own living space.

The upside? Sometimes it can be totally awesome to have a living space all to yourself. Right? Totally!

But the downside? Well, that would be the implication that led to this suggestion: the belief that all homosexuals are disgusting, unnatural deviants who can't control themselves and will rape anyone who breathes, as long as they're the same sex.

Are you freakin' kidding me, people?! First of all (and these are in no particular order), gays have been serving in the military, secretly, most likely since before the Stamp Act. I'm sure that in the course of that time, there have been some incidents of the kind feared above. But the important thing to remember is that these are completely atypical! Gays and lesbians are (wait for it!) human beings, just like all the other human beings on the planet, with a wonderful little trait called self-control. Common sense clearly dictates that this trait is exercised more often than not in the course of world events.

Second, when people are afraid, their brains start looking for little things to be afraid of. Key example in a non-related case: for the very first time, a six-year-old child goes to sleep without a night light. Naturallly, he or she is very nervous about being immersed in total darkness for the first time since the womb. At this time, anything becomes anything else. A teddy bear stacked in the open closet becomes a hideous monster waiting for the right moment to pounce. Closer to the point, if a straight man or woman is uncomfortable with their sexuality (which happens), they won't want to be left alone with someone who's just said, "Hey, I'm gay." Certainly not without a light on.

That's where the principle of "unit cohesion" comes in (and if I hear that term one more time, I am going to throw myself against a glass door until the world makes some kind of sense). Military brass are afraid that when that paranoia (irrational fear) sinks in, bye-bye to the effectiveness of the team. Well, they're right on that. But the solution is not in segregating gays from straights. That only leads to increasing the feelings of distance and difference. You know what happens when those feelings escalate? Brawls, riots, and, in extreme circumstances, genocide. Don't believe me? Read up on your history.

The secret to improving unit cohesion is to force the paranoid faction to mingle with those they fear. Let all the misconceptions go away and make room for truth. Because as soon as the paranoid people can wrap their frightened, Burt Gummer-y brains around the facts (that gay men and women forcing straight men and women into bed is the exception), this problem will be just another ugly scar on our hideously deformed, scar-addled history.

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Entertainment expert weighs in: This June, a modern American classic returns to regular life after seven years of cancellation. Watch Futurama, starting in the sixth month on Comedy Central! Somebody finally listened!