Staff editorial: Don't ask, don't tell, do repeal.

Last week, U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips declared the U.S. military’s discriminatory “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy unconstitutional.

Insisting the guidelines, which have defined the armed forces’ stance toward homosexuals for the past two decades, have had a “deleterious” effect on our nation’s military, Phillips issued an injunction against the armed forces, barring them from enforcing the policy.

Since its inception, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” has received consistent criticism from those who viewed the policy as a codified version of the military’s long-standing tradition of silence and closed-mindedness.  

Citing practices such as granting “undesirable discharges” to individuals demonstrating a homosexual identity, such critics could rightly accuse the armed forces of perpetuating hate and suspicion by enforcing policies that ban homosexual conduct and self-identification.

It is not surprising, then, that the courts would need to intervene in such a situation.

Throughout our nation’s history, the judicial branch has defended and defined civil rights, taking bold positions that intimidated lawmakers — who are often afraid of angering a prejudiced electorate — are reluctant to support.

However, in this time and on this issue, the nation stands united; recent polls show the majority of Americans support the admittance of gays into the military.

This makes Congress’s reluctance to take legislative action against the policy all the more surprising.

It’s also surprising that the military has been so slow to take action on this issue.
While many may naively accuse the armed forces of being a regressive, macho institution, it cannot be denied that throughout its long history, the military has pushed the nation forward in areas of integration and women’s rights.

Consider the promotion of Benjamin O. Davis, a black man, to the level of brigadier general in 1940, fourteen years before Brown v. Board of Education, when Jim Crow still ruled the South. Such a story, and many others, evidences the military’s prominent role in civil rights.  

Perhaps, then, the pervading reluctance to kill “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” might be indicative of larger, unspoken and lingering fears of and prejudice towards homosexuals in this nation.

While this early court victory, which will no doubt be challenged all the way to the Supreme Court, may seem like a minute victory for the gay community, any judicial success should be heralded and celebrated as a bold step toward equal rights.