In an April 16 letter to Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, presidential candidate John McCain, R-Ariz., said that gays in the military pose an “intolerable risk to national security.”

McCain’s reasoning is that if gay and lesbian servicemembers disclose their sexual orientation, “polarization of personnel and breakdown of unit effectiveness” will result.

This is the same rationale that fueled opposition to the entry of blacks into the armed forces in the mid 20th century and that still restricts women from serving in combat.

“If we attempt, merely by passing a lot of laws, to force someone to like someone else, we are just going to get into trouble,” then General Dwight Eisenhower warned in 1948, shortly before then President Truman signed an executive order stating, “There shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin.”

Racial and gender integration in our armed forces have not proven to be liabilities; neither will allowing gays in the military to be open about their sexual orientation. Studies of the 36 other nations that allow such, including Israel, the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada, prove it. Diversity does not erode morale; it erodes discrimination. Even if the United States retains “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the policy that allows gays and lesbians to serve in the armed forces as long as they don’t disclose their sexual orientation, American troops will continue to serve alongside openly gay troops from other nations. Nine nations allowing open service fought with American troops in Operation Iraqi Freedom. In addition, 12 nations allowing open service fought beside U.S. troops in Operation Enduring Freedom.

It’s homophobia that creates divisiveness, not homosexuality. Unit cohesion is not achieved by legislating that GLBT servicemembers hide their sexual identities – education, not ignorance, fosters understanding and acceptance among people.

We need leaders who do more than acknowledge the status quo, as McCain and, before him, Eisenhower, did, but who pave the way for solutions. If our military leaders take a zero-tolerance, instead of an intolerant, stance against homophobia in the armed forces, those who take orders from them will follow suit.

That’s why, this Memorial Day, we applaud the seven retired military officers who publicly acknowledged they are gay last month.

We give standing ovations to: Democratic Rep. Marty Meehan of Massachusetts, who reintroduced the Military Readiness Enhancement Act last March; to former Marine Staff Sgt. Eric Alva, the first American soldier wounded in Iraq, whom the Navy awarded a purple heart and who is now out and speaking against chair of Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Peter Pace’s remarks about the “immorality” of homosexual acts; to former President Carter, who this month sent a letter of support to the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network calling on Congress to revisit DADT; and to the many others working to secure equal rights for GLBT servicemembers.

We also remember the many GLBT servicemembers who have died in the line of duty – both in combat and at the hands of their fellows in arms, such as U.S. Navyman Allen R. Schindler Jr., 22, whose shipmates brutally murdered him in a toilet, beating him so viciously that they destroyed every organ in his body. Schindler’s death, in 1992, just a few months before Clinton passed DADT as an interim measure, brought the plight of all GLBT servicemembers to national attention.

Finally, we salute the 65,000 GLBT troops serving in silence in our armed forces, many of whom, as our feature story this week attests, live to serve their country but die a little every day under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”