Why tell if you're not asked? Self-disclosure, intergroup contact, and heterosexuals' attitudes toward lesbians and gay men.

The United States military’s principal justification for its policies concerning homosexual personnel has very little to do with the actual abilities or characteristics of gay men and lesbians. The Department of Defense (DoD) has virtually abandoned its past arguments that homosexual men and women are psychologically impaired, a security risk, or incapable of performing their duties, and therefore are inherently unfit for military service (Herek, 1993). Instead, the DoD now concedes that lesbians and gay men can serve honorably and capably, and acknowledges that they have done so in the past. Indeed, the current policy (“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Pursue”) allows service by gay people provided that they keep their sexual orientation a secret. Thus, current policy is less about homosexuality than it is about heterosexuals’ reactions to homosexuality and to persons who are gay or lesbian. The DoD argues that heterosexual personnel would be unwilling to work with or obey orders from a gay man or lesbian, that they would be unwilling to share sleeping quarters or latrines with them, and that the presence in a unit of an individual known to be gay would reduce cohesion and thereby impair performance (for elaboration on these points, see the chapters by MacCoun and Shawver). These arguments boil down to a concern about information: how gay people manage information about their sexual