COLUMN LEFT/ DAVID LINK : One Rule for Soldiers--Gay or Straight : It’s behavior that counts, not personal thoughts and feelings.

Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has demonstrated beyond any question that he is unfit to be (as rumor proposes) secretary of defense in the Clinton Administration. Last weekend he insulted every member of the armed forces when he said that if the ban on openly homosexual men and women in the military were lifted too quickly, he would “fear for (their) lives” because of the “very emotional feelings” of bigoted heterosexual soldiers.

The statement is symptomatic of how topsy-turvy the debate over this issue has become. It is not often that a man who openly desires to be in charge of an organization finds it necessary to disgrace those he wants to command.

There is no community in the country that is as effective in training its people as the U.S. armed forces. Obedience to superior officers is the very heart and pride of military training. A critical part of military discipline is that, whatever trainees may think, if a commanding officer demands that they conduct themselves in a certain way, they will do so. Anything else would be insubordination. That is something the thousands of homosexual Americans serving in the military understand.

There have always been lesbians and gay men serving their country. Observing military rules of conduct to the letter, they have been fully able to do their work without revealing their attraction (if any) to other service members of the same sex. In most cases they have done this so successfully that no one suspects they are homosexual. Gays call this being in the closet, and every one who is homosexual knows how to do it. It is a form of self-discipline that any military organization should find exemplary.

Against this model of military rectitude, Nunn portrays heterosexual soldiers as so unable to control their feelings that they would disobey the most rudimentary rules, not only of military order, but of common civility, and give free reign to their most violent and vulgar impulses.

Similar to the boys-will-be-boys attitude that led to the Tailhook scandal, exculpatory comments such as Nunn’s only encourage soldiers who want to believe that military order is order only to the degree that they accept it.

What is at issue here is not, and never has been, a soldier’s sexual orientation. Even those who oppose lifting the ban do not deny the existence of lesbians and gay men in the military. The question is whether they can be open about their sexual orientation the way heterosexual soldiers are. Even under the present regulations, a gay man could serve in any branch of the military as long as he remained closeted--something dependent strictly on his conduct while in uniform, not his private sexual feelings.

Opponents argue that the right to privacy requires keeping the ban in place, citing as examples the difficulty of living in close quarters and using same-sex showers. But the fact is that gay and straight soldiers have been thrown together in such situations since the beginning of time. The only question is whether heterosexual soldiers know about another soldier’s homosexuality. How is the issue of privacy changed depending on whether the gay soldier in the next bunk is closeted or open?

The military has searched in vain for evidence that any of the now openly lesbian and gay service members who were dismissed ever violated any rule of military conduct. From Perry Watkins and Dusty Pruitt through Margaret Cammermeyer and Keith Meinhold, homosexual servicemen and -women have been dismissed not for what they have done, but solely because they have been honest about their sexual orientation.

Whatever fears heterosexual soldiers may have, it should be clear by now that they have nothing to fear in the barracks except fear itself. And there may be far less fear than those like Sam Nunn would wish. While there is certainly bigotry and prejudice in the military, soldiers have proved again and again that their sense of military order is stronger than people like Nunn want to give them credit for.

Nunn’s suggestion--that in defiance of a direct order from the commander in chief, heterosexual bigots in the services will lose control of themselves and begin attacking fellow soldiers--says more about Nunn’s own prejudices than anything else.

Whatever control the military has over a soldier’s actions, people do not give up their beliefs when they serve their country. All Bill Clinton has said is that the military should get out of the thought-control business. Conduct is the measure, and the same rules of sexual conduct should apply to all soldiers, regardless of sexual orientation.

Nunn should condemn breaches of military conduct instead of holding them up as an excuse to keep the bigoted status quo.