Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was among the 229 Democrats and five Republicans who voted last month to repeal the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that prohibits openly gay men and women from serving in the military.
The “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, established during the Clinton administration, kept a ban on gay soldiers in place, but allowed them to serve as long as they remained in the closet. Since it was put in place, more than 13,000 service members have been discharged for being gay, according to The Associated Press.
The new legislation, which still needs to be approved by the U.S. Senate, wouldn’t immediately allow openly gay men and women to begin serving in the military. Instead, it removes a legal barrier to their service and allows the Defense Department and White House to begin establishing new guidelines under which gays could serve.
Under the bill, the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy would be eliminated once a Department of Defense study is completed, and the military leaders and the president agree that it will not damage the military.
“Frankly, I think the ban hurts military readiness,” Giffords says. “While fewer and fewer Americans are choosing to serve right now, the United States must recruit and retain the greatest number of the best and brightest Americans, especially during a time of war.”
Giffords says that the military has discharged almost 800 mission-critical troops and at least 59 Arabic-speakers and 9 Farsi translators for being gay in the last five years.
“The reality is, times have changed,” Giffords says. “You have even Dick Cheney saying that society has moved on, and we should reconsider the policy.”
Public opinion appears to be moving toward accepting gays in the military. Two polls in February 2010—one by Quinnipiac University, and another by CBS News/The New York Times—showed that at least 57 percent of Americans favored allowing out gays to serve.
But Arizona Sen. John McCain has promised to fight the repeal of the ban when it comes time for a Senate vote.
In Arizona, reaction to the lifting of the ban has varied. Yuma Mayor Al Krieger, for instance, called gay soldiers a “bunch of lacy-drawered, limp-wristed people” who were unfit to serve.
Krieger initially stood by his comments, saying that George Washington and Abraham Lincoln would have said the same thing. But as outrage grew, he apologized.
Giffords’ GOP opponents have been less blunt, but most of them oppose the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
Republican Brian Miller, who served as a pilot in the Air Force and still teaches pilots how to fly A-10s as a member of the Air Force Reserve, says he would not have voted to overturn the policy.
He says that “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was “meant to minimize or eliminate the distraction of sexual orientation in the military, and to that end, I support it.”
Miller says that he doesn’t know whether allowing out gays and lesbians to serve would undermine the military.
“It would frankly depend on the reaction of the homosexual in the military,” Miller says. “I have served with people who I suspect were homosexual, and it didn’t affect anything. And that’s because it wasn’t talked about. … It depends on how big a deal was made of it.”
Jesse Kelly says the vote to overturn the ban “was a terrible move and completely unnecessary. Right now, it’s a unit-cohesion issue; it’s a recruitment and retention issue. We already have gays and lesbians serving in the military. Why would you make an issue of it right now?”
A former Marine who served in Iraq, Kelly says he doesn’t believe open gays and lesbians would be able to serve without a negative impact on the troops.
“It’s the nature of the beast in the military,” Kelly says. “As someone who’s been in a military platoon, that is how it is. Once someone was suspected of that, or thought of that way, there was nothing hateful coming out of it. It just affected the unit. It may be an uncomfortable fact, but it is a fact.”
Kelly says he served with one Marine who turned out to be gay.
“I would never make the connection between his personal preferences and his performance on the job,” Kelly says, “but I will tell you that this particular individual was the worst Marine I ever served with.”
Former state lawmaker Jonathan Paton, a member of the Army Reserve, says the vote to overturn the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy was premature.
“They should have waited until the military actually came out with their report,” says Paton, who adds that he was unhappy that the legislation was attached to a defense-spending bill.
But if open gays are allowed to serve, Paton says that he believes soldiers would adjust to working alongside them.
“Any change that is made will cause a disruption, but you’ve got the best military in the world, and the military will do what they are ordered to do,” Paton says. “But I think it’s a mistake to make that decision based on politics and not on military readiness.”
Andy Goss says he was “very, very disappointed” in the vote to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
“The United States Armed Forces is not the place for social experiments,” says Goss, a former Army sergeant who now works for a military contractor. “For those gays and lesbians who are in the United States military, they are already serving and already receiving their promotions. This is not an issue for them. Why make it one?”
Goss complains that sometimes, soldiers take advantage of training and then claim to be gay (sometimes falsely) so they can be discharged and go to work for military contractors who pay more money.
Despite that problem, he says overturning the policy “will create more problems than it will solve. There are going to be more claims of harassment.”
Goss says allowing open gays and lesbians to serve would cause problems.
“I couldn’t speculate on what the effect would be, but there are going to be some issues with it,” he predicts.
Businessman Jay Quick is the only GOP candidate to say that the policy should be scrapped.
“I’d like to see it repealed,” Quick says. “I was in the Marine Corps myself, and I served with gay Marines, and we never had a problem.”
This article appears in Jun 17-23, 2010.
I think that the lifting of the ban of Gays in the military is a good thing! As a Marine I have no problem serving with openly gay individuals. I also think that ones sex life should not be open for public discussions … what goes on behind closed doors is nobody’s business but those behind those door (if they are consenting adults). Now, with that said I think there is a bigger issue that has to be addressed. We currently have an all “Volunteer Force”, I think this is the issue that we should be addressing.
The philosophy of an all “Volunteer Force” is not what I would call a good national policy for lots of reasons. The military is not getting the best of the best or the highly educated and/or motivated individuals. I would have conscription for ALL (Men and Women) to serve in our military for a period of four years active and two years inactive. Some exceptions would exist; however, on the whole everyone serves. Let the exemptions be hard to achieve in general. I don’t think that all levels of society are being appropriately represented in the military; hence, our military is degraded due to this inequity!
Thanks for the opportunity to see the Republican candidates in all their naked reactionary/pandering glory and the opportunity to give a voters response.
Millers statement that DADT is “…meant to minimize or eliminate the distraction of sexual orientation in the military, and to that end, I support it.” fails to acknowledge the rules regarding fraternization, (and presumably harassment) of any kind and lead me to smell a faint whiff of homophobia. It seems to me it that if those rules were adequately enforced there wound be no need to address sexual orientation. ‘Nuff said.
Once again, Kelly reveals himself to be something of a dim bulb, replete with internal contradictions. I’m wondering if perhaps that is a requirement for his party; it seems to crop up nearly anytime I hear a Republican candidate open their mouth about a whole host of issues. On a more personal note here, let me clear this one up for you Jess. You don’t hear about it because if harassment is brought up the serviceman doing so will get kicked out. Ya get that one, dumbass? If you “would never make the connection…but I will tell you…”, don’t make the connection. I can’t credit you with enough intelligence to describe you as disingenuous with that statement, you’re just stupid.
I give Paton slightly better marks though he can’t quite reason his way beyond what amounts to little more than ‘Uhhhh, I dunno’ as evidenced by his inability to grasp that the current policy already hampers military readiness. But maybe 13,000 troops, over 800 mission-critical troops and over 60 translators isn’t that big a deal. Maybe we should ask any serviceman who had to go on a mission without a translator how they feel. In actuality, based upon nothing more that general observations of him, I don’t think he is as homophobic as his lame vague statements might lead one to believe. He is just pandering to his reactionary base, knowing that were he to actually be rational about this, he wouldn’t stand a chance. He has to play dumb. Moderates are just chum in the water for his party.
Goss, in speaking for gays and lesbians with his statement, “This is not an issue for them.” seems that he must be keeping some of his obviously deep wisdom from the public at large. Could he really be a mind reader? It sounds like it. Oh, but wait, maybe not, because he goes on to claim that there will be “issues” he just won’t speculate about them. Or maybe he wants to keep that a secret. As far as the military not being a place for ‘social experiments’, he might want to be mindful of the integration of the military and the same hollow claims made by the racists that weren’t in favor of that one, the only ones for whom it didn’t work out for.
Goss goes on to say “There are going to be more claims of harassment.” Tell me this, if ‘harassment’ is an issue, who is it really going to be an issue for? Those poor endangered defenseless servicemen who will be harassed by those big dangerous queers ready to sodomize their fellow soldiers at the drop of a towel? Or are you ready to leap to the defense of the currently discriminated-against gays who , under the current DADT policy, have to literally fear for their lives and careers because of real world harassment that the current policy, de-facto, validates?
I applaud Jay Quick for being the only CD8 Republican candidate who seems to be living in the real world, as opposed to the others whose vision seems to be clouded with the toxic vapors of fear and rationalizations born of their homophobia.
Should any of the first four get the nomination you can chalk one up for the forces of fear and stupidity here in the land of the free, home of the brave and feel proud that the ‘world’s most powerful, well educated military’ is in fact afraid of “a “bunch of lacy-drawered, limp-wristed people” who were unfit to serve”. If DADT is kept in place, understand that this military is unable to measure up to those military powerhouses like Lithuania and Poland, not to mention, gasp, FRANCE!
I guess we’re just not as tough as those bad-asses.
I am a retired Air Force officer and I can unequivocably say that repeal of DADT is the right thing to do for our military readiness, for our gay and lesbian service members and for our cohesion of our military force in general. The troops know who is gay now, the only thing DADT does is force a double pretension (the leadership pretends the gays aren’t there and the gays pretend they aren’t), and a compromise of integrity on the part of the gay and lesbian troops who have to hide who they really are. It is a total waste of time and energy. Real leadership doesn’t constrain it’s followers, it unleashes their potential!
p.s. and oh, by the way, the military is totally the place to implement social experiments…desegregation of the blacks by Truman in 1948, more integration of women, etc.
Apparently it’s not the lower ranks that are homophobic but the people at the top in higher military statuses. Makes you wonder what their problem really is.
Nathan wrote:
“I would have conscription for ALL (Men and Women) to serve in our military for a period of four years active and two years inactive.”
Logistically, that is an absurd idea. Statistical demographics from 2000 show there are almost 40 million people in the 15-24 age group (http://faculty.ucc.edu/egh-damerow/u_s_dem…). Off the top of my head you have to build housing, feed & cloth, provide medical care and training. Who’s going to pay for that?
“The United States Armed Forces is not the place for social experiments,” says Goss, a former Army sergeant who now works for a military contractor. “For those gays and lesbians who are in the United States military, they are already serving and already receiving their promotions. This is not an issue for them. Why make it one?”
This statement is a line of Bullshit! It is an issue for them because they have to hide who they really are. When a heterosexual couple in the military attends a military function they can be who they are. When someone who is gay attends a military function must go alone leaving their partner at home because they must pretend they are single. The ones who are mostly effected are the ones at home who can’t be recognized as a part of the military or a military spouse which is one of the hardest jobs to do (to be invisible)! A homosexual has every right to be a part of the military as a heterosexual. They serve their country just as good if not better!
As for the comment about the Gay Marine who was the worst marine to serve with has nothing to do with his sexual orientation. I know of many who serve who are not gay that do not deserve to serve because they are thugs and who are disrespectful to the military and its mission. Sexual orientation has nothing to do with it. It is about integrity!