In the 2003 Iraqi War, British units, containing openly gay men and lesbians, often fought in joint operations with United States military. There is no evidence that serving with openly gay men and lesbians in any way adversely affected the performance of the American troops.

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Russia and Eastern Europe

The policies in many of the countries that comprised the former Soviet Union are unclear and inconsistent. Some, including Estonia and the Czech Republic openly embrace homosexual personnel, while others, such as Hungary, maintain gay bans.

Russia's policy is much less clear. After the fall of the Soviet Union, no official policy existed, even though homosexuality was decriminalized in civilian society.

In 2003, Russia announced a new policy under which homosexuals who had problems with their sexual identity could be drafted only in times of war. According to gay activists in Russia, this new policy continues to allow well-adjusted gay men and lesbians to serve. Yet what the Russian military will do in practice remains unclear.

Part of the difficulty in understanding the military's policies and attitudes toward gay and lesbian personnel in many of the eastern European countries involves a different sense of sexual identity and its place in society. Whereas the question of homosexuality in the military has been highly politicized in the United States, it is not necessarily so in many European countries. Generally speaking, sexuality in these cultures is considered a much more private and personal aspect of one's identity than it is in the West.

Conclusion

Given the many different cultures that comprise the European continent, it is difficult to generalize about European military culture and homosexuality. Depending on the context, gays and lesbians are accorded everything from support and acceptance to silence and stigma.

Yet if the case of Great Britain is any indication of the general movement of European militaries and their cultures, then they are slowly growing more tolerant of gay and lesbian personnel in their ranks and are creating policies to reflect this change.

In addition to having many legal protections for glbtq people, Belgium became the second country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage.

Denmark has a reputation for sexual liberation, tolerance, and progressive social policy in regards to glbtq issues.

France, the second largest nation in Western Europe, has a rich, if markedly ambivalent, relationship to glbtq people and cultures.

Modern Greece is a conservative society in which there is little tolerance for openly queer lifestyles, but activists have worked since the 1970s to improve the status of gay men and lesbians.

The United States military's relation to homosexuality is complex and contradictory, defining itself explicitly in opposition to homosexuality, but nevertheless facilitating the very behavior and identity it seeks to exclude.

The successes of the Dutch emancipation movement have served as an inspiration to the international struggle for glbtq equality.

Recently, New Zealand has distinguished itself for its liberal attitudes towards those of diverse genders and sexualities and its progressive anti-discrimination policies.

Like most Scandinavian countries, Norway respects glbtq rights, and Norwegians are broadly tolerant of homosexuals.

A cultural crossroads between Asia and Europe, Russia has a long, rich, and often violent heritage of varied influences and stark confrontations in regard to its patterns of same-sex love.

Although homosexuality has figured prominently in Turkish history and literature, in modern Turkey the status of homosexuality and of glbtq communities are insecure at best.

Twentieth-century efforts to reform British law and public opinions about homosexuality met with mixed results, but at the beginning of the twenty-first century the United Kingdom has emerged as a leader in recognizing the rights of its glbtq citizens.

The European Commission on Human Rights was the first international human rights organization to condemn homophobia; the European Court of Human Rights, which replaced the Commission, has also helped enforce glbtq rights.

The fascinating story of Colonel Alfred Redl, an Austro-Hungarian Army Chief of Counterintelligence who was blackmailed into spying for Russia in the years before World War I, has had a significant legacy for homosexuals.