A little over two and a half years ago I accepted a job as a professor at Old Dominion University.

Deciding to delay the move of my family from Ohio, my wife and I began searching for rooms I could rent for the next two semesters. Hundreds of Craigslist ads and phone calls later I was able to find a room being sublet by two military men, one a lifer, the other newly retired, both in the Navy and both gay.

Next time we'll be able to show their faces too. (Pic | Till Krech)

As roommates, the two men were excellent: clean, dutiful, quiet, about as boring as any professor could want. Friday nights were game night (I never participated) and their friends, many of whom were also gay and in the military, would show up. In fact, my small room and nine months in Ghent made it clear to me that many more gay men and lesbian women were in the military than I had ever imagined. Still, the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy kept these couples in their proverbial closets, opening up to me about their partners and hopes that this policy would soon end.

Furthermore, DADT never really worked to keep military units free from the knowledge of their colleagues sexual preferences. Months later, before one of my roommates decided to leave to what he felt was a post in a much better city for gay men, San Diego, I asked him if his superiors knew he was gay. He flatly stated, “Yeah, I know that they know but they aren’t allowed to tell me that they know, just as I am not allowed to tell them I know that they know and, well, it’s just weird.” Weird to hear, and even weirder to realize that DADT forced not one, but multiple parties to live a lie. Worse yet, the policy meant neither of these parties could ever fully trust each other. That would be one thing for most relationships, but for a military relationship where one’s safety, one’s life is at stake, trust is everything.

Trust is also at the heart of all communities. It is the glue that makes all social networks operable and is formed through numerous indirect activities. In other words,  I trust my neighbors not only because they offer me the occasional cup of sugar, but because they offer me opportunities to network and meet others, look out for my home, offer my family safety,  and simply live without fear. This is why the repeal of DADT will slowly alter the dynamics of Norfolk and Virginia Beach, both of whom sport young, large veteran and enlisted populations. As the repeal will allow many more GLBT people to be who they are, in the open, without the fear of losing their military career, they will be able to form more trusting relationships. The less worried you are about whether or not the family across the street or friend from apartment 2D sees you going into that bar or kissing that person, then more you are able to trust your community. And if you treasure your community, then the more likely you may be to commit to it.

From the The U.S. Army training guide on the homosexual conduct.

So why does this matter to those fifteen people out there who are neither gay nor have any gay relatives or gay friends? Besides to obvious moral problems of forcing a significant population to live an everyday lie, the region’s economy is at stake. Hear me out. The perception of our region is one that is relatively conservative because of its strong military presence. As the military goes, so goes Hampton Roads. The problem with this is that for the past seventeen years DADT has effectively stifled the ability for a considerable minority population to live in the open. More and more companies have come to see diverse populations as key to their success in a global economy. Indeed, the same tech companies and media producers that Hampton Roads wants to attract look at a region’s diversity as one of the key factors that drives growth because open, diverse populations do a better job at solving problems than those that are relatively homogeneous.

The leading North American researcher focused on these new economic drivers, Richard Florida, has long noted, and with some controversy, that one leading indicator of a metropolitan region’s success in high-tech industries is a “large gay population.” In one Brookings Institute study, Florida and his co-authors note that, “While our findings on the link between the Gay Index and high-tech growth cannot be viewed as conclusive, the results are quite consistent with our theory that social and cultural diversity attracts talent and stimulates high-tech growth.”

While any student of statistics can tell you, correlation does not (necessarily) equal causation, the numbers in Florida’s 2001 publication are eye-opening. San Francisco ranked number one on the Milken Tech-Pole Ranking and number one on the so-called Gay Index Rating. And so it went with one high ranking tech city after another boasting a considerably gaudy rating in the Gay Index. Only Philadelphia, Houston and Phoenix ranked in the top fifteen spots for tech and fell out of the top twenty spots in the Gay Index.

Where did Norfolk rank? 44th out 50 in Tech-Pole rankings and 37th out of 50 on the Gay Index. In a region that is disproportionately populated with enrolled military and civilian vets, this repeal of DADT is a first step to more openness, tolerance and trust for everyone. Hopefully it will be a tipping point we can point back to when many of those talented GLBT enlistees who live in this region of beautiful beaches and unique culture started to think twice about leaving by taking the first ship to San Diego.