From: http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/nn74/sprg2n/military/03.jpg
Against the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Policy
There's nothing that I respect with the utmost gratitude than someone who is in the Armed Forces. I truly believe that the reason Americans have our basic rights and freedoms is from these men and women who sacrifice their own freedom, time, and even their lives to defend those American principles of freedom in serving within the US Armed Forces. Ideally, it is said, the U.S. military defends our rights and freedoms so that all U.S. citizens can be guaranteed of "every man is created equal." But the reality in America is that not every man is created equal, especially for someone who is gay, lesbian, or bi-sexual. Indeed, sexual minorities are still being treated, in our 21st century, like second class citizens in both the civilian world and U.S. military when it comes to equality. With our U.S. military stretched to the breaking point in occupying both Iraq and Afghanistan, the battling of lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, and transgendered rights, and the possibility of military engagement with Iran, all these current events bring to light the significance and the relevance of confronting the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy now for America. My focus here is on the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) policy and how it stands against our American principles of freedom, equality, and expression that all of our service members have fought to defend. Though the DADT policy is similar as that of its early predecessors in polices of racial discrimination within the military, it is even more discriminatory than those policies because of how the DADT policy infringes upon every service member's sexuality by denying them to freely express or identity themselves as other than heterosexual, regardless of race or ethnicity. Thus, they must pretend to be someone they are not in acting heterosexual.
Just like any other minority, sexual minorities that are gay, lesbian, and bi-sexual, have a long history in America for being treated lesser than human, from being labeled as "social-psycho paths" from psychologist screening recruits during World War II, being black-listed as "deviants" to national security in the McCarthy Era of the 1950s, and currently, being identified as "threats" to unit cohesion and morale within the US Armed Forces, according to what the rationale of the DADT policy. This policy appears to exercise discrimination that goes against our preachings of equality and freedoms for other people not our own. But then again, our own American nation has been built on discrimination. During World War II, for instance, being African American meant that you could not serve alongside your Caucasian service members or could not openly go into an all white establishment where signs had "No Coloreds," even in uniform. Discrimination became a tool for oppression against all types of minorities. For instance, being Asian American, regardless of whether you were Japanese American or not during World War II, meant that you would be discriminated against based upon your appearance or even taken to an internment in order to "monitor" Japan's people. Though majority of Asian American complied with the U.S. government in being interned in order to show their loyalty to the U.S., it was not a matter of loyalty these minorities had, but whether if these U.S. citizen appeared to fit the racial profile of being Asian. The actions of the U.S. government to have Asian American internment camps was based on racial discrimination. That was not the only form of discrimination practiced during that time. Sexual discrimination was also pursued by the U.S. government, which for a gay man enlisted in the U.S. Navy, that meant that you could not openly show your attraction to the same-sex or you'd be thrown into prison for sodomy or into a mental institution for being labeled as a "social psycho-path" or mentally unstable for being a homosexual. But discrimination did not stop minorities from serving during World War II. With someone hiding, cruising, and congregating, lesbians found other lesbians, gays found other gays, sexual minorities found each other, and created bonds that created networks that then created the emergence of a community and sub-culture of their own.
Sexuality is not an identity characteristic that can be easily seen as that of racial identity. More so, racial identity is not defined only by appearances but is defined by culture, which produces the associations and judgements that are based on the appearance of an individual. Though one can express their racial identity, culture bases racial discrimination not on expression, but firstly on their appearance. Sexuality, on the other hand, can either be expressed or not. One can choose when to express it. And while early racial discrimination policies operated on visual characteristics, sexual discrimination must operate on performed behaviors that appear not to be "straight" behavior based on subjectivity of the heterosexual majority. Under the DADT policy, if the performed behavior of "straight" acting is violated by an individual declaring him or herself a sexual minority or performing any other behavior that goes against the norm of heterosexuality, then the military punishes the individual by discharge from its service. To function and serve within the military, these individuals are forced into heterosexuality that violates their freedom of expression in not being open about their true sexuality other than heterosexual. Thus, this DADT policy is a particularly repressive form of discrimination, requiring sexual minorities to always pass as heterosexual, forcing them to act and appear "straight" in all their forms of behavior, public and private.
For instance, imagine you deploy to Iraq, your unit fights in combats during the on-going weeks, there is a possibility that you will die, but you cannot discuss about your significant other to one who asks innocently, "What did you do this weekend," or "Are you going out with someone?" Imagine living a double life of being in uniform, forced to act "straight" by day, drive hundreds of miles, away from your base, to be gay by night, lie to your co-workers about whom you are dating or in love with, such as "Oh yeah, I went to the movies this weekend with
From: http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/xml/news/2007/04/marine_specops_relief070410/marine_specops_801_070410.JPGBut what about the other side on the effectiveness of the policy? Just as one of our current U.S. presidential candidates, Senator John McCain, during the November 2007 YouTube Republican Debate, stated about the policy in that "it's working." One argument for the policy is that allowing these sexual minorities to serve openly within U.S. military units or in the ranks would damage unit cohesion and morale (unless you are the UK, Spain, Canada, the Netherlands, Australia, to list a few countries that have no ban). Some reasons for supporting this argument is that most Americans that join the Armed Forces are "conservative" and that to place them into a small unit where there is an openly homosexual is to infringe on these young-minded, "conservative" soldiers' beliefs. That their principles would be violated in forcing them to serve alongside a minority that is different from them and would go against their moral values and religious beliefs. Another argument for keeping the DADT policy is that it monitors and controls conduct of service members in order to ensure that unit cohesion is not put "at risk." And to lift that ban now would be in-appropriate because this is not the right time to make such a decision for our U.S. military that is currently at war, fighting terrorism. Top military leaders are saying that "it's working," so therefore, this DADT policy should continue. After all, it has been here for nearly 15 years, so why mess with the policy now if "it's working," right?
The first argument on claiming young soldiers that join into the military are "conservative" is invalid. Our U.S. military is a reflection of our society. One way or another, that person will have to adapt and deal with different types of people, including gays or any other minority. And the surprising news is that these young soldiers of "conservative" background already do tolerate those that are sexual minorities in their units. The thing about the DADT policy is that it does not even fully ban sexual minorities. So gays, lesbians, and bi-sexuals are already serving in those units, people in those units know of them, and tolerate them. They do co-exist and operate with other members in their unit. Some sexual minorities are actually open to their units even. People are put in
uncomfortable situations all the time in the military, such as being deploy to a foreign country, given orders to go into hazardous areas, and have to adapt within the environment they are put in order to survive. If the orders are given to obey the toleration of sexual minorities openly, the military will follow, soldiers will adapt to the change, and the world will not end. You do not have to be "conservative" to join the military as you do not have agree with the military in being "conservative." Nor do you have to be gay to tolerate gays just like you do not have to agree with being gay to tolerate gays. People have different values, beliefs, religions, and though not all agree with each other, people accept and tolerate each other's differences in our civilian society, same goes for our military. Why should the military be treated differently in this regard of toleration, after all, is not our military called to serve and live up to higher standards? Again, our military is a reflection of our society.
For the "at risk" argument that the DADT policy monitors, controls, and protects unit cohesion, while this argument may be against sexual minorities, it does not stand against ex-criminals that could pose an even greater risk within our U.S military than sexual minorities with no criminal records. But rather than raise that bar of its standards, the U.S. military has actually lowered it by the use of waivers in allowing ex-criminals to join into the ranks. According to the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, 861 people, with criminal records, were granted "conduct waivers" to enlist in 2007 compared from 457 total in 2006, with the U.S. Army admitting felons 511 in 2007 from 249 in 2006, and the U.S. Marines admitting felons 350 in 2007 from 208 in 2006 . These crimes include aggravated assault, maiming, rape, sexual abuse, sexual assault, child molestation, manslaughter, theft, drug offenses, terror threats, and bomb threats. But hey, why should someone with a little felonies and convictions on their record stop them from joining the U.S. military, since there is, after all, the Iraq war going on and recruitment needs do have to be met, even if it means allowing sex offenders, child abusers, drug addicts, thieves, burglars, arsonists, some people convicted of manslaughter, and some for terrorist bomb threats. So you've broken into a house and evade capture by the enemy, in this the case, the cops. Uncle Sam has a place for you, the U.S. Army. Fought and beaten against those that were being like insurgents and less than ten-years-old. Marine quality. Have more than one felony conviction? Then the Army and Marines maybe not be for you, but the U.S. Navy just might be. They allow repeat offenders, though the U.S. Navy did recruit fewer people with convictions of 42 in 2007 from 48 in 2006 and the U.S. Air Force allowed none for both years. But kiss a grown man on the lips? Unacceptable for our military to tolerate. This certainly raises questions about our U.S. government on the rationale in how it can be more tolerable in allowing felony convicts to serve into our U.S. military, but not tolerable enough to allow a soldier that is gay, has critical skills needed greatly, and has no criminal record to serve just as equally and openly as their heterosexual counter-parts.
And what about all those laissez-faire U.S. civilians who could care less about the U.S. military? If I'm not in the military, what do I care what the U.S. government does, it doesn't affect me. Well, our U.S. government policies have to come from funding and budgets in order to be created and carried out. That means funding and budgets have to come from a source, our U.S. citizens' pocket books and taxes. So then U.S. citizens' tax dollars are going to work each time enlisted soldiers and officers get trained. For instance, to place an officer through school, such as Reserved Officer Training Candidate (ROTC) programs or military academies, would be the equivalent to about $200,000 for each cadet/midshipman. Imagine how much it cost to train an Army medic or an Arabic translator? Now, imagine what happens when those service members get discharged under the DADT policy for being identified as "a homosexual/bi-sexual or engaging in homosexual acts." U.S. citizens' tax dollars are wasted and lost because then, more money is spent to find their replacements, and to make up for their training all over again. According to a report in 2005 from the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the separation of LGBT service members separated under the DADT policy cost the U.S. Department of Defense nearly $200 million dollars since the creation of the policy in 1993. In addition, 757 service members who held critical occupations, 322 with important language skills, and with a total of 9, 488 service members have been discharged by the DADT policy since its implementation in 1993. This is U.S. citizens' tax money being wasted, whether one agrees, disagrees, or does not care about the DADT policy. More so, the carrying out of the DADT policy puts a unit's cohesion and morale "at risk" when it discharges a highly skilled service member needed for the mission than someone who is just a sexual minority openly serving. Though the military must enforce policies that may prove to be expensive, it decides whether to retain or eliminate a policy based on the effectiveness for the military . For the DADT policy, it fails to be effective. Rather, it compromises the effectiveness of the military when the DADT is retained and discharges a sexual minority with critical skills needed to complete their mission.
One can argue that the DADT policy is actually a progressive policy, that it is a forwarding step of progress for all sexual minorities. After all, it was first signed and implemented by a Democratic president, Bill Clinton, in 1993, as a compromise to satisfy both the heterosexual majority and the sexual minorities. But this DADT satisfies no one. Rather than taking a progressive step forward, this policy stops dead in its tracks, and stalls to end prejudices against sexual minorities. The DADT policy was supposedly created to protect sexual minorities from not being persecuted, but the U.S. military can still investigate and persecute them for what they do within their private lives. When the U.S. government enacted the DADT policy, it gave sexual minorities the order not to act "homosexual/ bi-sexual" but to act "straight." This policy does not give the right for sexual minorities safely and freely express themselves or engage in an open relationship. It forces sexual minorities to hide themselves into acting "straight" and though they can never be "straight," the U.S. military coerces sexual minorities to adopt the heterosexual life style within their private lives. Thus, this policy is discriminatory, violating these U.S. citizens' rights of freedom of expression and privacy.
In the last resort of defending the DADT policy, one can finally argue a potential truth that the U.S. military does not have an adequately developed, institutionalized culture in creating a secure environment for sexual minorities. This argument is based on fear. I believe the U.S. military is better than that. This argument should not be used as an excuse for the U.S. military to discriminate against any minority. With every institution, including the U.S. military, its culture evolves and changes over time, and it must adapt to changes of the time in order to survive. If the U.S. miliary cannot adequately adapt with the situation of sexual minorites serving, then this challenges the adaptiveness of the U.S. military itself. More so, this argument challenges how adequately developed the U.S. military is in its institutionalized culture of integrating minorities. The U.S. military must adapt to change in order to defend its society or then it fails to defend its society. This excuse in discriminating against sexual minorities because its culture cannot adequately adapt with them openly integrated has already been used in the discrimination against other minorities based on race, as well against women, being integrated into the U.S. military.
Of all these arguments in keeping the DADT policy, it's not how "conservative" our U.S. soldiers are, it's not how sexual minorities can put unit cohesion and morale at risk, and it's not even about how much money is lost to the DADT policy annually. It's about discrimination. All of these arguments are backed up by discrimination and allowing discrimination to carrying on in order to block another minority in the U.S. from entering the Armed Forces. Even though yes, all U.S. citizen, who self-identity as gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, transgendered, or heterosexual, are required to pay income and government taxes yearly, sexual minorities are still being treated like second class citizens. They are literally paying for the policies and laws that discriminate against them. Therefore, the DADT policy is unconstitutional because it discriminates against our own U.S. citizens. It does not ensure equality for all U.S. citizens that are sexual minorities. For our military, this policy sets a precedence in overriding privacy and freedom of expression for all U.S. citizens that are guaranteed by our U.S. Constitution. If that most legal document is breached to not guarantee every U.S. citizen their rights to privacy and freedom of expression, then what other precedence can our rights as U.S. citizens not be guaranteed and taken by our U.S. Government? Currently, this is how the U.S. Government treats sexual minorities. So, is America really the land of equality? Or of discrimination? Whatever impacts our military also reflects our society. This DADT policy goes against our American principles of freedom and equality that our Armed Forces strive to defend. And to continue this policy is be against ourselves, our country, and our meaning of what it is to serve within our Armed Forces.
Bibliography:
1. D’Emilio, John. Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1998.
2. Berube, Allan. Coming Out Under Fire. New York: The Free Press, 1990.
3. "US military recruits more ex-cons." Apr. 2008. BBC News. UK. 12 Jul. 2008
4. D'Anne Witkowski. "U.S. Department of Defense." Apr. 2008. Between the Lines. Vol. 1617, Iss. 559; p. 14. Livonia. 12 Jul. 2008
5. Tatchell, Peter. "Just a phase." Nov. 2007. Guardian. UK. 12 Jul. 2008
6. Belkin, Aaron. "Don't Ask, Don't Tell: Does the Gay Ban Undermine the Military's Reputation?" Apr. 2007. Armed Forces & Society. University of California, Santa Barbara. 13 Jul. 2008
7. Waxman, Henry A. "Letter to Under Secretary Chu." Congress of the United States-House of Representatives: Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. April 2008. 16 Jul 2008.
8. Steward, Derek B. "Military Personnel: Financial Costs and Loss of Critical Skills Due to DOD's Homosexual Conduct Policy Cannot Be Completely Estimated" United States Government Accountability Office. February 2005. 16 Jul 2008.
9. Gaytoday.com. "Don't Ask, Don't Tell Denounced by Former President Clinton." Service Legal Defense Network. 7 October 2003. 19 July 2008.
10. Bors, Matt. "200th Strip." Idiot Box. 2006. 16 July 2008.
11. All photos of soldiers and sailors provided from Photobucket.com. 16 July 2008.
12. Bluealliancevideo. Living Under Don't Ask Don't Tell. 19 January 2008. 16 July 2008. Youtube.com
13. Lance5677. Novemeber 2008 YouTube Republican Debate (LGBT Questions). Youtube.com. 28 November 2007. 16 July 2008.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnJVHuFeYkA&feature=related>
14. Photos of soldiers provided from Photobucket.com. 16 July 2008.
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