Gays in arms: can gays in the military work? In countries around the world, they already do.

• Author: Konigsberg, Eric

Maybe Fort Bragg cadet Hallie Weinstein would have been better off if she had agreed to date the captain who asked her out. Once spurned, he began snooping into Weinstein's private life and reported to her superiors that she was a lesbian, a revelation that got her and her lover thrown out of the military. Surely Weinstein would have been better off had she been a soldier in the Dutch army.

In the United States, the debate over gays in the military remains a war of abstracts: Defenders of the status quo rehash fears about unwelcome advances in the showers and warn darkly of morale problems, while critics of the gay ban continue to lob rocks at the policy from the moral high ground of human rights. But with our policy stuck in hypotheticals, the strongest argument for gays in the military is quietly made elsewhere--in countries such as Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Israel, and to a lesser extent France, where gays have already been integrated into the armed forces. While the Pentagon pursues a policy that every year hounds 1,000 able-bodied gay men and women out of the service--wasting $27 million in training costs annually--other countries demonstrate that with the fight mix of education and cajoling, a military with gays can work.

Take Holland, where an estimated 12,000 soldiers--10 percent of the total force--are gay. Holland's government considered homosexuality grounds for dismissal until 1974, when the Association of Dutch Homosexuals convinced the minister of defense that gays posed no threat to national security. Nevertheless, gays could still legally be passed over for promotion simply because of their sexual orientation. But in 1986, Rene Holtel, then a major, was told by his commander that though he was an excellent officer, "he wouldn't want me to rise in rank because I was gay." Holtel went to his superiors and fought the camouflage ceiling, which was abolished in 1987, leading to the birth of the Foundation for Homosexuality in the Military, which Holtel, now elevated to lieutenant colonel, chairs.

Holland's success stems from its effort to educate soldiers. Already required of officers and noncommissioned officers in the air force, and soon to be mandatory in the army and navy, is a four-day course known as Aeen Kwastie van Kyken, which roughly translates to "It's in the eye of the beholder." The seminar is designed to teach sensitivity toward minorities in the military, in particular women, blacks, and gays. Apparently it works. Rob Segaar, a 29-year-old...