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White House Sends Mixed Signals About Ending Don’t Ask, Don’t Tellby Kilian MelloyWednesday May 20, 2009 President Obama made the repeal of the military’s ban on openly gay troops a priority during his election campaign; now that he’s in the Oval Office, confronted with an array of crises inherited from the Bush administration, some GLBT leaders fear that full integration of the nation’s armed forces has fallen by the wayside.
To date, Obama has done nothing proactive to promote the end of the ban, which was begun by Congress and then-President Clinton in 1993 as a compromise measure. The ban, which is popularly known as "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell," theoretically allows gay servicemembers to stay in uniform as long as they keep quiet about their sexual orientation.
However, critics of the ban say that it is impossible for gay and lesbian troops to keep their sexuality a complete secret, and point to instances in which suspected gays and lesbians have faced investigation into their personal lives even though they have not broached the subject of their sexuality.
Critics also allege that straight women are bullied into silence by male colleagues who sexually harass them and then, when their advances are rebuffed, threaten to "expose" them as lesbians.
However, President Obama has allowed the ban to move incrementally closer to its end by declining to appeal a court decision, made when George W. Bush was still in office, which requires military officials to explain discharges made under the ban.
The ruling, handed down a year ago by the Ninth U.S. Cirtcuit Court of Appeals, also questions whether the ban in and of itself passes Constitutional muster, according to a May 20 article in the San Francisco Chronicle.
The deadline for appeal expired on May 3, the article said. But that development was followed in short order by a May 19 statement from the Pentagon that military brass have no intention of ending the ban on gay troops, despite the hundreds of millions of dollars the ban has cost taxpayers, the thousands of qualified military personnel whose careers in uniform have been cut short, and two ongoing military engagements that some say have stretched America’s volunteer defense forces to the breaking point.
The Pentagon’s statement was covered in a May 20 Associated Press article that quoted Geoff Morrell, a spokesperson for the Pentagon, as saying on May 19, "I do not believe there are any plans under way in this building for some expected, but not articulated, anticipation that ’Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ will be repealed."
Morrell also said that there was no plan to end the ban until Congress acted to do so, and noted that President Obama had made no request of military leaders to retire the policy.
However, Morrell also noted that the President and Defense Secretary Robert Gates had met with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, about the issue.
"They’re aware of where the president wants to go on this issue," Morrell told the media, "but I don’t think that there is any sense of any immediate developments in the offing on efforts to repeal" the ban on gay troops.
Recent news reports have continued to detail how the ban causes top-level military personnel to be fired.
As noted at the Web site of the California-based GLBT equality group the Courage Campaign www.couragecampaign.org/page/s/dontfiredan a West Point graduate and veteran of U.S. action in Iraq, Lt. Dan Choi, made a March appearance on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show, where he came out as a gay man.
Choi was discharged the following month under "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell." In recent weeks, Choi has become the latest media-friendly, articulate person to occupy the anti-DADT spotlight, a distinction shared by the likes of Sgt. Eric Alves, the first American casualty in the current engagement in Iraq.
Alves lost a leg in Iraq and was decorated for his service, before being discharged under DADT.
Another distinguished servicemember, Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach, was fired after eighteen years and thousands of hours in the air for the United States Air Force under DADT.
Fehrenbach had served with distinction before being unwillingly separated from the service.
Fehrenbach subsequently made his own appearance on the Rachel Maddow Show, on May 19, to discuss his case.
In an May 19 op-ed piece published in The Myrtle Beach Sun, Issac Bailey decried the policy as "dumb," and cited the recent "Tea Party" events that have taken place across the country, calling for smaller government and smarter use of taxpayer dollars.
Bailey noted that among other issues involving perceived government wastefulness, the events conspicuously overlooked the costs of the anti-gay troops policy, and tallied up the monetary losses ($363 million, according to a retired rear admiral and the Government Accountability Office) as well as the cost to military’s pool of talent and training, and, arguably, military readiness.
The military fires around three thousand troops per year under the policy, Bailey wrote, citing an estimate that 65,000 gays and lesbians are currently serving their country in uniform.
Opponents of the movement to end the ban offer the usual, and vague, arguments about "morality" and "morale," but such arguments are met with the observation that the military culture is based upon submission to authority and mission-oriented thinking.
If gays and lesbians are allowed to enlist and serve openly, the military will adapt, the argument says; as for fears that the military will not be able to attract and retain heterosexuals, polls show an increasing acceptance of gays and lesbians in society at large and experience on the ground in Iraq shows that openly gay servicemembers are accorded the same respect as any other servicemember: they are judged on their military performance.
The predicted erosion of unit cohesion and discipline has not taken place because of gays in uniform, but some lapses in military decorum and discipline have occurred due to the ban itself, critics charge.
Those arguments form, in part, the basis of Nathaniel Frank’s argument that the anti-gay ban is actually making America less effective militarily.
In the book "Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America," Frank challenges anti-gay assumptions and predictions, pointing to the ban’s own internal inconsistencies as well as the living proof, in the form of the fully integrated militaries of other nations, that the ban is unnecessary and potentially harmful to military preparedness.
Bailey noted that among those who continue to be discharged are specialists trained in "mission critical" skills directly related to military capability and intelligence gathering, which play a crucial role in the ongoing war against terrorism.
Kilian Melloy reviews media, conducts interviews, and writes commentary for EDGEBoston, where he also serves as Assistant Arts Editor.
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