i can't claim any accuracy, it's just a strong suspicion given the nature of other social movements... i read something a long time ago about how many social movements in this country have been shaped by the limitations of our political system. that is, it's difficult to get congressional legislation passed on controversial social issues, so people work through the courts, hoping to bring a case to the Supreme Court. this was the strategy of the NAACP and abortions rights movement, in part. what little research i did in response to your question, would suggest that this was the case. it's likely that a cadre of aclu lawyers had a great deal to do with it. i think that matters for shaping the questions that get asked, the politics that are played out, the alternatives that we think we have. which of course means that we don't ask certain questions..... the gays in the military issue was an issue that sought to hit the gubmint where it counts: how can you deny people the right to want to serve their country. you see the political value of such a strategy, yes? once you have the federal government on the defensive and land a few precedents in the courts, then the laws at the state level can be attacked too. which is the same reason behind gay marriage struggles: how can you attack people who want to have committed relationships in a time when people are, right and left, worrying over the "decline" of "the family"?
and that, of course, is the way the differences in these movements are portrayed: struggle to be part of the system and be like everyone else or social movement practices that undermine and challenge it....?
we're queer, we're here and don't look or act like you, so get used to it. or we're gay, proud, the many and we're just like you....
jillian sandell has an article calling into question the whole line of the gay marriage movement-- the demand for respectability by being just like everyone else. do a search at Bad Subjects, http://eserver.org/bs. can't recall the name
i think the economic impulses behind the decision to go into the military are much greater than you think, the visions of dying for one's country greatly downplayed. it has really only been about a decade that USers have felt any sense of number oneness in the world..... the military was an embarrassment. my son, btw, occasionally comes home from school after a social studies class and/or convo with the friends and he asks me, "if we get in a war with another country, nothing bad can happen right mom? we can beat them right mom?" now, if my kid is hearing about how some other country could kick US ass...... things aren't quite so ideologically seamless as you might want them to be. we're not that long away from the humiliations of the Vietnam war, yes? doug kellner has argued that the war flick of the 80s was an ideological attempt to restore the dignity of nationalism via the media. more complicated than i can recount here.....
for the kids who went into the military in the mid-80s i don't recall anyone walking around proudly announcing it. there was, afterall, at the time, widespread ridicule of the service as full of dumbies who could barely pass the tests, people who couldn't make it into college be/c their grades were poor. the humiliation that they likely already experienced in high school is simply continued, only now you've got the reassuring voice of Recruiter telling you how you're ace, blahbedeblah. [used to live next door to an air force recruiter]
anyway, most of these kids grew up n a world of utterly no opportunities where there seems to be no possibility of dignity. that was my world and the world of the people i grew up with. we're talking coming of age during the worst recession in the country since the depression. we're talking a town where there were, for months, no jobs advertised in the newspaper. a best selling bumper sticker: the last one out of _____, please shut out the lights. etc. only 5 years ago, the 5 country area there lost a total of 13,000 jobs in 5 years. the military will look good to you. and for as long as we've had a volunteer military, that economic turmoil has been a glaring reality for a large number of the people who end up there. there is also the appeal to those who want a college degree but who don't know how to get one. or those who'd like to fly a plane. it's sold in this country, after all, as a temp. job experience and as a step toward college education. that's the biggest pitch they make. as best as i can tell, the initial impulse among the many people i knew was not about dying for one's country or dreams of glorious nationalism. it's more about belonging and finding a sense of purpose and direction in one's life at a time when that becomes a tremendous burden for a lot of kids. not claiming any biological naturalism, but if adulthood = a respectable job then this is one of the most profound decisions one faces.
kelley