I’d like for you to do me a favor. Tomorrow, when you go to your job or to your classes, don’t tell anyone you see or work with what gender you are. If you sense that they may know what your race is, deny it, and if your ethnicity starts to show through hide it quickly; someone might see.
It sounds like a ridiculous task, but it is happening in our own Armed Forces. “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was hatched by the Clinton administration as a compromise with republicans to keep from banning gays in the American military all together.
The idea—gays could serve in the military but only if they kept their homosexuality under wraps.
The premise is no less ridiculous than the scenario posed at the beginning of this editorial. The compromise made was equally as ridiculous. By cementing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell into law congress made a bad situation worse.
The law is out of step with the times and now polls show, it is out of step with the public opinion as well. A recent ABC News poll showed that 75 percent of Americans are in favor of gays serving openly in the military. It would appear that our country has moved ahead of our leaders in Washington and the military brass.
Those who wish to serve our country in the military should be allowed to do so without qualification, and should also be allowed to do so openly.
One’s sexual preference is no more a choice than race, gender or ethnicity. Just as it would be absurd to expect someone to hide these things on the job, so too is it equally as absurd to expect someone to hide their sexuality in the Armed Forces, and be discharged should they slip up.
More than 13,500 brave Americans have been discharged under Don’t Ask Don’t Tell since President Clinton signed it into law in 1993; over 600 in the last year, the majority of them being women. Of those thousands no doubt many were specialists in their field and offered priceless assets to our military. Yet, because of a bogus law, we are without their contribution.
In a time of two wars overseas where translators and cultural specialists are crucial, we cannot afford to be firing them over matters such as this.
This is a law that must be repealed; there is no time like the present to do so. President Obama campaigned last year on the promise that he would unequivocally end the law.
“I will end Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” Obama vowed once again in an Oct. 10 speech to a gay civil rights advocacy group. All of those promises, both on the campaign trail and behind podiums at civil rights dinners have been empty ones at best.
Speaking on the eve of a massive gay rights demonstration in Washington, D.C., the president said, "We should not be punishing patriotic Americans who have stepped forward to serve the county. We should be celebrating their willingness to step forward and show such courage, especially when we are fighting two wars.”
The president is nothing short of correct, but so far his bite hasn’t matched his bark at all when it comes to the issue of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell; or any other gay rights issue for that matter.
The startling truth is that we are two wars right now so it is questionable why or how the military leaders have the gumption to ask for more troops while they are systematically discharging highly qualified troops for their sexual preferences.
Many other western nations including our allies in NATO, Britain and France have abolished similar laws. None of the countries that have done away with them have reported dissent or a decline in morale among their troops. It wouldn’t happen here in America either. Our leaders just need to open their eyes.
Addressing this issue has been put off long enough and it cannot be allowed to get lost in the debates over larger issues such as health care reform.
LBQT blogger Jeff Sheng has started a project of photographing homosexuals in the military while obscuring their faces, as some of them are in the closet. He wants to expose the military’s dirty little secret. The project is just in its beginning stages but helps put a picture with a cause and will hopefully add more pressure to the Obama administration to deliver on their promises.
The LBGT community is often some of the most socially liberal in our country and no doubt played a big part in electing Barack Obama. Issues as cut and dry as Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell are ones that I frankly thought wouldn’t be a fight if Obama were elected. No doubt many others in the community felt the same way.
It seems though that it is a fight, and certainly one worth fighting for. Barack Obama must be held accountable by the people who helped elect him. He must be pressured and in turn must pressure congress to repeal this law.
Every day that Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is allowed to remain military policy is another day that injustice rules over social equality.
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