Military leaders have begun to come out in support of President Obama’s stated intention to lift the current ban on openly homosexual members of the military. Essentially, this would mean that you could continue to serve even if you were openly gay, discussed being gay, engaged in gay behaviors or sought to marry a member of the same sex.

And the question is, are we ready?

I know that other nations, notably Israel, do not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. They’ve done it that way for a long time. We have not. The United States of America still exhibits homophobia routinely.

Especially in athletics and especially in the military.

Why? Because men live and work in close quarters in both cases, and because men have a fear of being confronted by a physically superior man who wants to violate them. We aren’t afraid somebody will kiss us on the cheek, slap us on the ass or make a pass. We’d be disgusted and annoyed, but not frightened. No, we fear a monster, somebody who takes what he wants. We fear being made helpless.

When we know that we are surrounded by men who prefer women, we have nothing to fear (unless we go after the same woman, but those are normal male battles) from each other. We can unite in a common bond, a brotherhood, something physical, emotional and chemical, with no fear that somebody in the group is having a different hormonal reaction than we are.

It’s complicated and it is of course primitive. We can, in our thinking brain, rule out the basis for the fear. We know it’s not catching. We know there is little chance we will be the victim of sexual aggression. If we work on it and work on it and work on it, we can get there.

But can we flip a switch? That’s the unknown.

Can we revert from a peer pressure which insists on conformity and swift justice to a peer pressure which insists on respect for diversity and tolerance? That’s enormously unclear.

It’s the “right” thing to do. Is it the correct thing to do? Will it be properly handled by all sides? Will men become demonized for failing to adjust rapidly enough to the sudden change?

I see rough sailing ahead.