Published in the Maryland Daily Record February 21, 2010<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The battle to abolish \u201cDon\u2019t Ask, Don\u2019t Tell\u201d (the policy against allowing openly gay people to serve in the military) is picking up steam.\u00a0 Consider this Round 2 of the fight.\u00a0 Round 1 ended when DADT passed in 1993.[1]<\/span>\u00a0 But it is the same fight: to get gays and lesbians accepted in the services.\u00a0 Which makes it worthwhile for today\u2019s \u201cDADT-abolitionists\u201d to ponder the question: What were they thinking in Round 1?\u00a0 What did they say then?\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The most obvious thing they were thinking was that they had to compromise.\u00a0 President Clinton had made a campaign promise<\/a> to abolish the then-existing policy <\/a>excluding from the military all homosexuals, closeted or out, active or gay only in their own minds.\u00a0 But he found that the military was trying to keep the policy intact.\u00a0 Abolitionists and defenders of the status quo fought to a draw: a policy modification that theoretically allowed gays and lesbians to keep their orientation and sex practices private.\u00a0 In exchange for staying closeted, they could stay in uniform.\u00a0 It seems clear that this compromise has failed; people keep getting dragged out of the mandated closet,[2]<\/span> and the inhabitants of the closet are growing restless.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In short, the fight was not then, and surely is not now, over degrees of outness, but over homosexuality itself.\u00a0 So again: what were the prohibitionists\u2019 concerns?\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 One thread running through congressional testimony was that some people are just uncomfortable being around gay people or object morally to homosexual acts.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Senator Dan Coats typified the approach<\/a>: \u201cMany people who serve in the military today share a viewpoint that allowing homosexuals to serve in the military goes against their religious beliefs or moral convictions…\u201d\u00a0 He feared that some who felt that way might not enlist or stay enlisted.\u00a0 In other words, it\u2019s not that we\u2019re necessarily discriminatory ourselves, just that we want to retain the discriminatory people we recruit.\u00a0 The interesting thing, though, is that of the 13 servicemen summoned to oppose allowing out servicemen to serve<\/a>, only one said he would actually quit if this happened.\u00a0 Others who adverted to the issue merely expressed the sense that other<\/em> servicepeople would be hostile and\/or quit.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A variation was: even if we don\u2019t discriminate, the discriminatory people already there would make life too hard for the gays, and we\u2019d be distracted from the military mission by the imperative to protect the sexual minority.\u00a0 As Admiral Thomas Moorer told Congress<\/a>, young sailors \u201cwill spot a homosexual a mile away as soon as he comes in, and they’ll have to name him Tessie, or Agnes, or whatever.\u201d\u00a0 A Marine sergeant worried<\/a> that if he had to protect gay marines who reported to him, the straight ones would start questioning his own sexuality.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Given changing times, the \u201cTessie or Agnes\u201d scenario might not happen much today.\u00a0 But even if were likely, it shouldn\u2019t drive public policy. One person\u2019s rights or privileges under the law should not be cut off merely because of other people\u2019s discomfort, disapproval or derision.[3]<\/span>\u00a0 The Supreme Court rightly rejected this justification in Lawrence v. Texas<\/a><\/em> as it related to criminalizing homosexual behavior.\u00a0 We can sympathize with those whom gays make uncomfortable (their loss, after all); we cannot make that discomfort the basis of a policy that disqualifies gays from the privilege of serving.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The military rejected a similar line<\/a> when the armed forces desegregated in 1948. <\/a>\u00a0The inevitable reminders of this precedent in 1993 were met with the argument that race is inherent while sexual orientation is a matter of choice or conduct.[4]<\/span>\u00a0 I\u2019d question both propositions, but even if they were right, so what?\u00a0 Discrimination is discrimination.\u00a0 Would it be any more appropriate to reject a soldier because of her legitimate choices than because of what she cannot control?\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Coats also gave voice in his remarks to another main argument: that when people have to sleep around each other and get naked around each other, which happens in military environments, sexual attraction may result.\u00a0 That sounds reasonable.\u00a0 But then there is a leap to the proposition that this is destructive of good order and discipline.\u00a0 A similar jump is also found in the \u201cfindings\u201d portion of the DADT statute.[5]<\/span>\u00a0 There is something missing in the middle there: the part that explains why sexual interest by gay or lesbian service members destroys that good order and discipline.\u00a0 How exactly does that destruction work?\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I could hardly find anyone coming out and saying it, but the missing piece has to be the fear that gay servicepeople will sometimes act on that sexual attraction: that they will leer or proposition or rape, in other words.\u00a0 And we can agree, without getting down to specifics, that these behaviors, if they happened, might be deleterious to good order and discipline.\u00a0 Go to any athletic club, though, and watch all the straight guys and gay guys changing clothes and showering together.\u00a0 See much leering?\u00a0 Or discomfort?\u00a0 I thought not.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Anyway, with gender integration, nudity aside, the services already have all the issues with sexual attraction.\u00a0 We know, from recent pregnancy statistics<\/a>, that heterosexual interest among servicemembers is often reciprocated \u2013 and from military rape statistics<\/a> that it is often acted on when it isn\u2019t reciprocated.\u00a0 There is already a lot of welcome and unwelcome sexual attraction among servicemembers.\u00a0 Good order and discipline suffers from both, no doubt, but the remedy is to make and enforce rules about how to deal with sexual attraction, not to kick women (or men) out of the military.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Adding gays and lesbians to the mix (to the extent they\u2019re not already there) looks like changing some of the dancing partners but not the dance.\u00a0 Perhaps, if we could live in that mythical time when combat units consisted exclusively of heterosexual males, we could eliminate these issues.\u00a0 Female servicemembers are here to stay, however, and universal heterosexuality was doubtless a myth anyway.\u00a0 Rear Admiral Robert Spiro told a lurid tale<\/a> of a ship during World War II where some gay sailors made unwelcome advances to straight sailors.\u00a0 His point was the disruptiveness of these gays.\u00a0 But his story revealed what statistics would have led one to predict: gays were there then.\u00a0 And indeed, most witnesses at all the hearings acknowledged that there were plenty of closeted gays and lesbians in the military, many serving with distinction.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The prohibitionists\u2019 unstated nightmare scenario was exemplified in Spiro\u2019s story: gay men propositioning straight men.\u00a0 Exactly why this prospect excited such distress (a serviceman could simply say no, just as he could to a woman) is hard to comprehend, but obviously it loomed large in the prohibitionists\u2019 fears.\u00a0 Because we have never tried a military where uncloseted gays and lesbians could freely serve, we can\u2019t be certain there wouldn\u2019t be more unwelcome sexual advances.\u00a0 But the experience of the many, many countries where gays serve openly is that there is not much to fear.<\/a>\u00a0 The key to success in a military where two sexes and multiple orientations exist is a good sexual harassment policy, well enforced.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 As this record shows, the prohibitionists were not benighted fools.\u00a0 They were just, with all due and sincere respect, wrong.\u00a0 And they still are.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/a>[2]<\/span>.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Ironically, discharges of gays and lesbians went up dramatically (as well as anti-homosexual harassment incidents) in the years after the promulgation of DADT.\u00a0 See the statistics and facts in Conduct Unbecoming: The Tenth Annual Report on \u201cDon\u2019t Ask, Don\u2019t Tell, Don\u2019t Pursue, Don\u2019t Harass\u201d (2004)<\/a><\/em>.\u00a0 Wikipedia updates those statistics<\/a>, suggesting that the purging of homosexuals has gone down somewhat in subsequent years, but still exceeded 400 in 2009.<\/p>\n <\/a>[3]<\/span>.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Charles Moskos, a sociologist who had much praise for racial integration in the military, nonetheless became the chief architect of DADT, <\/a>and subsequently defended this approach by his oft-quoted remark that \u201cprudes have rights.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n <\/a>[4]<\/span>.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Senator Trent Lott (later ironically notorious for a remark that seemed like an indirect disparagement of the civil rights movement as \u201call these troubles\u201d<\/a>), typified this approach<\/a>: \u201cSkin color is a benign, nonbehavioral characteristic. Sexual orientation is perhaps the most profound of human behavioral characteristics. Comparison of the two is a convenient but invalid argument.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/a>[5]<\/span>.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 See the logical jump between 10 USC \u00a7 654(a)(14) and (15)<\/a>.<\/p>\n Copyright \u00a9 Jack L. B. Gohn<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What were they thinking when they passed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell?” Here’s what. And it was just as wrong then as it is now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[872,878,882,876,886,879,873,874,883,875,877,457,153,885,884,880,888,881,887],"class_list":["post-789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bigpicture","tag-dont-ask","tag-878","tag-admiral-thomas-moorer","tag-armed-forces","tag-charles-moskos","tag-dan-coats","tag-dont-tell","tag-gays","tag-lawrence-v-texas","tag-lesbians","tag-military","tag-president-bill-clinton","tag-president-clinton","tag-rear-admiral-robert-spiro","tag-robert-spiro","tag-senator-dan-coats","tag-senator-trent-lott","tag-thomas-moorer","tag-trent-lott"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=789"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":791,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789\/revisions\/791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/a>[1]<\/span>.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The policy is actually embodied in several different documents, including the statute, 10 USC \u00a7 654<\/a>, parts of 32 CFR Part 41<\/a>, and numerous service branch regulations.<\/p>\n