Don’t ask, don’t tell
By
Zach Ammerman |
IDS
POSTED AT
09:54 PM ON Oct. 26, 2009
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The President campaigned for extending equality for all Americans.
While some of his ideas were fundamentally flawed even then – like his refusal to support same-sex marriage – I am realistic enough to admit that for now, no viable candidate for the presidency can be in favor of same-sex marriage and win.
He did, however, pledge to overturn “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the rule that prohibits gay people from openly serving in the military, as well as the Defense of Marriage Act, the federal law that doesn’t require states to recognize the gay marriages performed in other states where it is legal.
Far from doing this, the President has actually instructed federal attorneys to support the Defense of Marriage Act in a court case suing the federal government over its constitutionality and has done nothing to end the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that was implemented in the 1990s.
Needless to say, this is exactly the opposite of the progress that Obama promised less than a year ago.
Since the implementation of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in 1994, more than 13,500 gay men and women have been unfairly discharged from the military.
The University of California estimates that the cost of retraining replacements for the discharged soldiers has been at least $190.5 million.
At least 59 critically-needed Arabic and Farsi linguists have been discharged.
So what, exactly, is the justification for all of this? So that straight soldiers won’t feel queasy or uneasy when they see how well-decorated their neighbor’s bunk is? We don’t need to actually protect them from things like, you know, bullets or bombs.
Keeping them from having to deal with diversity is close enough.
This assertion that the military couldn’t handle having gays is not only absurd, but completely untrue.
According to a Zogby poll from December of 2006, 64 percent of soldiers report that they do not think that having openly gay soldiers in their unit would negatively impact them, and only 37 percent of soldiers are against the idea of allowing gays to openly serve.
And to top it all off, dozens of prominent military leaders have come out (pun intended) in favor of lifting the ban, including retired general and former Secretary of State Colin Powell, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff John M. Shalikashvili, and former Secretary of Defense William Cohen, all Republicans.
So if the military isn’t even against it, why haven’t politicians repealed it yet?
Do they fear the wrath of voters in the religious right? If so, they have nothing to fear. Even majorities of weekly churchgoers (60 percent), conservatives (58 percent) and Republicans (58 percent) favor outright repeal of this discriminatory and unjustifiable policy.
When the religious right is more gay-friendly than the Democrats in power, something is seriously wrong.