Does 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Have a Future?
By Daryl C. Hannah
June 27, 2008
"Don't ask, don't tell" was a compromise that has been vilified since its inception in 1993. Former President Bill Clinton had campaigned that he would lift the ban barring LGBT people from serving in the military and allow them to serve openly. Once in office, he ran into opposition, and "don't ask, don't tell" (DADT) was born. A compromise that makes neither side happy, the policy prohibits the military from asking service members about their orientation and requires the military to discharge members who acknowledge openly that they are LGBT.
Fast forward 15 years and now, even politicians who supported DADT are turning their backs on their brainchild. In fact, they, along with some veterans who became members of Congress, are calling for the repeal of the policy.
"It is easy for me to see why 'don't ask, don't tell' should be repealed," says Joe Sestak, D-Pa., the latest to join 17 other veterans who serve in the House and are supporting a repeal of DADT. "Once you have served in war and faced danger with a gay service member, how can you come home and say gay people should not enjoy equal rights? It is simple. 'Don't ask, don't tell' must be repealed."
Even Republicans who supported DADT are calling for the policy to be eradicated. "I believe it is critical that we review--and overturn--the ban on gay service members in the military and I voted for 'don't ask, don't tell,'" former Sen. Alan Simpson, R-Wyo., wrote in The Washington Post. "But much has changed since 1993. We need every able-bodied, smart patriot to help us win this war."
So why the change of heart? It's about the numbers.
Currently, DADT permits the firing of servicemen and women for being openly LGBT. Under the policy, an average of two people every day and a total of more than 12,000 servicemen and women have been fired since the policy was enacted, according to the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN), a national nonprofit policy organization dedicated to ending discrimination against and harassment of military personnel affected by DADT.
SLDN also reports the policy has ousted dozens of Arabic linguists and hundreds of people with critical skills, costing more than $360 million in taxpayer funds between 1994 and 2003. New data from the SLDN shows that a disproportionate number of women have been targeted under DADT. For example, 46 percent of those discharged from the Army under the policy in 2007 were women, although women only make up 14 percent of its personnel. While women only make up 20 percent of the Air Force, 49 percent of those discharged because of DADT were women, reports The New York Times.
"Women make up fifteen percent of the armed forces, so to find they represent nearly fifty percent of Army and Air Force discharges under 'don't ask, don't tell' is shocking," SLDN's executive director, Aubrey Sarvis, told The New York Times.
But the future of DADT may depend heavily on who emerges victorious in the presidential election in November. Likely Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama, who has been labeled lukewarm on LGBT issues, insists, if elected, he would push to repeal the policy.
"I would never make [DADT] a litmus test for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I think there's increasing recognition within the Armed Forces that this is a counterproductive strategy," Obama told The Advocate. "We're spending large sums of money to kick highly qualified gays or lesbians out of our military, some of whom possess specialties like Arab-language capabilities that we desperately need."
On the other hand, Navy veteran and GOP nominee Sen. John McCain says the policy is "working," according to The New York Times, saying, "I recently had a conversation with some other military leaders on this issue and their point to me was 'It's working, so leave it alone. Generally, overall, it's working' … And right now we've got the best military we've ever had--the most professional, best trained, equipped and the bravest. And so I think it's logical to leave this issue alone. I really do."
If the new president doesn't take action, the courts just might decide the fate of "don't ask, don't tell." In May, a federal appeals court in California reinstated a lawsuit challenging DADT. The lawsuit was filed by Maj. Margaret Witt, a flight nurse who, after serving in the Air Force for two decades, was suspended from duty after her relationship with a civilian woman was discovered, according to The New York Times.
What is important about the federal court's decision is that it calls for the government to meet a heightened standard of scrutiny in cases like Witt's. The court said the government must prove in each DADT case that intruding into the plaintiff's private life is justified because it advances an important government interest that's at stake.
Witt, in her lawsuit, claims that the government's interest was not served by her suspension because she "was a model officer whose sexual activities hundreds of miles away from base did not affect her unit until the military initiated discharge proceedings under DADT and, even then, it was her suspension pursuant to DADT, not her homosexuality, that damaged unit cohesion," according to a press release on the decision put out by the Chicago Commission on Human Relations.
While the ultimate fate of DADT is at least six months away, its crippling effects are being felt today.
Send Your Comments About This Article Now
©DiversityInc. Reproduction in any format is absolutely prohibited.
|
