That policy is “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” established in 1993
during Bill Clinton’s first term as president, and later enhanced to
include “don’t pursue, don’t harass.” It was a “compromise.” The
military would accept gays, and not ask them their sexual preferences
as long as they don’t speak out in favor of homosexuality, acknowledge
their lives, or enter into any relationships with members of the same
sex.
Harry Truman, by executive order, had dictated the end of segregation
in the military. Clinton planned to do the same for those who are
involved in same sex relationships. Opposing him were all of the
military’s “big guns,” including Gen. Colin Powell, chairman of the
Joint Chiefs. When Powell, a Black, was asked by gay-rights groups, and
thousands of others, how he could support discrimination against gays
while acknowledging that desegregation of the military allowed his own
career to flourish, Powell merely said that the two were not the same.
It was Powell, however, who crafted the revised policy.
Among the reasons the military claimed why gays couldn’t serve was
because their presence would hurt troop morale and undermine combat
effectiveness; gays could be security risks—they were likely to be
blackmailed or compromised, said military commanders. The Navy’s
Crittenden Report in 1957 discounted that reasoning. During the early
1980s, the Department of Defense issued an official declaration
opposing gays in the military; the 124-word inflammatory new policy was
designed to justify reasons why gays must not be allowed to serve.
However, an independent RAND Corp. report in July 1993 found no logic
to exclude gays from service, and concluded that military readiness
would not be affected by having gays in service.
Congressional support to eliminate the ban came from several prominent
Democrats, and one highly-respected Republican—Sen. Barry Goldwater
(1909-1998). Goldwater, a pilot who retired as an Air Force major
general, had numerous times had spoken out against the emerging
dominance of the Religious Right in Republican politics. Although there
is no clear-cut evidence that President Bush is homophobic, there is
significant evidence that the continuation of the ban against gays in
the military has been strengthened by the resurgence of the influence
of the religious right wing during the Bush–Cheney Administration.
Because the military is a hierarchy, with constant jockeying for duty
stations and promotion, there is no question that the Chairman’s views
about what he believes is the immorality of homosexual behavior will
influence every person in his command.
About 65,000 gays, lesbians, bisexuals, or transgenders now serve in
the military, all of them officially hiding their non-military lives,
according to the Urban Institute and Servicemembers Legal Defense
Network (SLDN). Almost 9,500 members of the military, including
hundreds in critical combat specialties, including 50 Arabic language
specialists, have been forced out of the military between 1993 and
2005, according to SLDN.
In 2003, on the 10th anniversary of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy,
Brig. Gen. Keith Kerr (USA-ret.), RADM Alan Steinman (USCG-ret.), and
Brig. Gen. Virgil Richard (USA-ret.), in a signed op-ed column in the
New York Times, all stated they were gay. In an op-ed column for the
New York Times,
Gen. John M. Shalikashvili, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, said he believed “if gay men and lesbians served openly . . .
they would not undermine the efficacy of the armed forces.”
State and federal laws prohibit discrimination against a person’s
sexual orientation; the FBI, CIA, Secret Service, Drug Enforcement
Agency, and National Security Agency all have openly gay agents; The
armed forces, says Gen. Wesley Clark, former NATO commander and
Democratic presidential candidate in 2004, “are the last institution in
America that discriminates against people; it should be the first that
doesn’t.”
Israel, which unarguably has one of the world’s most elite and
effective military operations, officially bans discrimination against
gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgenders. Israel “has more gay
rights than all of the U.S.,” says Denny Meyer, a former Vietnam era
Army sergeant first class who is also editor of the
Gay Military Times.
Almost 30 nations—including most countries of the European Union—have
no problems with anyone’s sexual orientation. The United Kingdom, whose
soldiers serve with Americans in Afghanistan and Iraq, is even
“actively recruiting” gays and lesbians, says Meyer. Of the 26 NATO
nations, only the United States, Portugal, and Turkey don’t allow gays
to openly serve in the military. And Turkey, says Meyer, “is close to
allowing gays to serve.”
Almost three-fourths of all
military personnel say they are “comfortable” with having gays and
lesbians in their units, according to a Zogby poll in December. About
one-fourth of all military persons say they know that a member of their
unit is gay—and it has no effect upon them.
Former Sen. Chuck Robb, who served 34 years in active and reserve duty
as a Marine officer, in 2002 said that “the threat to morale,” which
some believe will occur if there is a policy to permit gays in the
military, “comes not from the orientation of a few, but from the closed
minds of many.”
About 79 percent of all Americans believe the military should allow gays to serve openly, according to a
Boston Globe
poll conducted in May 2005; a FOX News poll two years earlier revealed
that 64 percent of all Americans had no problem with allowing gays to
serve openly. About two-thirds of all Catholics and slightly more than
half of all Protestants believe in the rights of gays to serve,
according to a Pew Research Center study of March 2006.
Rep. Martin Meehan (D-Mass.), with 114 cosponsors, including
conservative Republicans, on Feb. 28 introduced the Military Readiness
Enhancement Act (H.R. 1246) that would end “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and
replace it with absolute nondiscrimination on the basis of sexual
orientation. With most of the world’s best military units not worried
about the presence of gays in their ranks, with large majorities of
both military and civilian personnel believing gays should be allowed
to serve openly, and with a Democratic Congress that claims it plans to
make necessary social changes, now is the time strike down the
hostility of an intolerant minority and to eliminate one more form of
officially-sanctioned discrimination.
[Assisting on this column were the American Veterans for Equal Rights
(AVER) and Servicemens Legal Defense Network (SLDN). For further
information, contact the AVER (
www.averny.tripod.com), SLDN (
www.sldn.org), Human Rights Campaign Foundation (
www.hrc.org), and
The Gay Military Times [
www.thegaymilitarytimes.com. Dr. Brasch’s latest books are
America’s Unpatriotic Acts: The Federal Government’s Violation of Constitutional and Civil Rights and‘
Unacceptable’: The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina. Both are available through most online stores, including amazon.com]
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