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Military Homosexual Complex

Why 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' undermines our military and our Constitution

by braeden mayer

The U.S. has a shortage of translators for what the government calls critical languages: languages such as Arabic, Persian, Urdu, and Farsi, which are important in helping the U.S. fight wars in the Middle East. However, the military has discharged 58 Arabic and Farsi translators since 1994. Why you ask? Simply because they were gay: Under the U.S. military policy known as Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT), homosexuals aren’t allowed to serve openly in the military. That policy is outdated and should be reversed by the Obama administration.

Before I delve into why DADT is wrong, I want to look at the circumstances surrounding its initial implementation. It all goes back to Bill Clinton. On the campaign trail for the 1992 election, Clinton promised to lift the ban preventing homosexuals and bisexuals from serving in the military. But, as we all know, politicians never keep their promises.

In 1993, a pair of reports was released which claimed that allowing homosexuals to serve in the military would erode unit morale and cohesion and that homosexuals were pedophiles and would engage in illicit behavior during their tour of duty. Consequently, Clinton was forced to compromise and institute DADT allowing homosexuals to serve in the military as long as they didn’t tell anyone that they were gay.

It’s ludicrous to claim that homosexuals would destroy unit morale and cohesion. Think back to the civil rights movement in the mid-twentieth century. While Brown v. Board of Education wasn’t decided until 1954, and most schools weren’t integrated until long after that, President Truman signed an executive order that began the integration of military units in 1948. When African-Americans were first integrated with the rest of the military, there were very few race-based crimes during service, and the military adapted quickly to the change. Integration not only reduced race-based crimes but also significantly increased the pool of potential recruits for the U.S. Army.

Because of the structure and hierarchy of the military, a simple executive order to allow homosexuals to serve openly would be implemented immediately.

The military is in dire need of personnel, so rejecting ‘outed’ or openly gay soldiers doesn’t make sense. In Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America, Nathaniel Frank estimates that the military has dismissed “11,000 capable service members under the policy, including over 300 linguists, 49 nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare specialists, 90 nuclear power engineers, 52 missile guidance and control operators, 150 rocket, missile and other artillery specialists, and 340 infantrymen.” We need as many specialists as we can get. In case you have been living under a rock, WE ARE IN A FREAKING WAR! Last time I checked, it wasn’t smart to discharge vital assets to your war effort, especially when you are fighting groups that speak a different language, possess nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons, and are no strangers to using rockets.

DADT should also be repealed because of its discriminatory nature. Recently, the gay rights movement has grown stronger across the United States. More states are legalizing gay marriage (Maine and New Hampshire in 2009) and increasing homosexual rights. Homosexuals are people just like everyone else. They are not inferior beings and should not be treated as such. It is time for the U.S. to join the rest of the world and expand the rights of gays by allowing them to serve openly in the military. Gays are allowed to serve openly in Israel, Italy, Ireland, and a host of other developed countries and even developing countries, such as Romania. It is time that the U.S. stop hatred of gays and let them be honest about themselves while serving their country.

Last, but certainly not least, it costs the military money to keep homosexuals out of the armed forces. A 2005 estimate put the cost of the DADT policy at 365 million dollars to date. That money could be used much more effectively to do something productive in Iraq or Afghanistan instead of to keep willing volunteers out of the armed forces.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is simply stupid. Homosexuals can serve our country just like anyone else without causing any disruptions in unit morale or cohesion. We need them more than we know. They are vital tools to fighting America’s wars abroad, and it’s a waste for us to be spending money to keep them out of the military. So Obama, be a good politician, hold true to your promise, and end the ridiculousness that is DADT.

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in November 2009 issue

Story Comments

(4 Nov '09) Melissa Kenfield says,
Minor semantic issue: A repealing of DADT is not what we need, since that would place us even further back. We need a modern parallel to Exec Order 9981. As beautiful a cry as "End Don't Ask, Don't Tell!" may be, we need to be pushing for more - an overt decision to decriminalize homosexual behavior.

I would suggest that the missing piece is the lack of international pressure from countries we care about. One of the pushing factors for Truman was proving that we are more 'civilized' than were Soviet nations. How could we complain about human rights transgressions of other countries when we denied the humanity of a substantial portion of our population? None of the countries we are at tension with would see us as any better if we had more equitable treatment of gays in the military. Dare I say that many Middle Eastern countries would have even further objections to what they percieve as gross immorality in the United States if we treated homosexuals as equals? And though Europe and the UN may see us as backwards for our treatment of gays & lesbians, half of our political system seems proud that we ignore international commentary.

DADT is a huge step forward compared to the treatment of homosexuals in the military before that point. For quite some time, soldiers were subjected to psychological and physiological examinations to try to "prove" if a person was gay. They actively sought out homosexuals for the purpose of expelling them from the military. DADT, while still maintaining that homosexuality was inappropriate for those in military service, at least kept the closet door closed as opposed to previous policies which nosed into the closets of everybody. That being said, DADT has outlived its usefulness as the rest of the United States grows more accepting.

For more, see: Sinclair, G. D. 2009. "Homosexuals in the Military: a review of the literature." Journal of Homosexuality 56: 701-718. UTD doesn't have a subscription to that journal so you may have to ILL it. Also, http://www.hrc.org/issues/military.asp has quiet a bit of valuable information on the topic.
(4 Nov '09) Braeden Mayer says,
As far as an overt decriminalization of homosexual behavior, if I am interpreting this right, homosexual behavior is already decriminalized that happened in Lawrence v. Texas. As far as an anti discrimination clause that needs to be put somewhere, like a second version of the Civil Rights Act for homosexuals, I agree. But we have to take this small steps at a time. That is what I was saying when I talked about how integration of the military prior to Brown v Board. If we start with the military, we can move forward from there, but like all anti-discrimination policies, they take time to implement and they need to be taken in small steps before discrimination is outlawed completely.

While international countries that we 'care about' (I guess you are implying that those are countries in the middle east) may hate us for allowing them in, I really don't think this is relevant in this context. I think there are plenty more things that we do that make them more pissed off than allowing gays to serve in the military. I mean, for one thing we are pretty much a nation of Christians, we don't make our women cover up, we have equality of the sexes, we don't rule based on religion, we invade their neighbors and call them terrorists. I think these issues are much more important to them than something like homosexuals in the military. I reall don't think that if we allow gays in the military, then the next terrorist attack will come with the disclaimer that we did this because you allow gays to serve openly in the military. And another point, we already allow them to serve as long as they don't tell anyone, so lets not forget that they are not banned, per se, they are just not out. So they are there. We just don't know who they are.

And as for your third point, I agree. While DADT was a huge step forward for the time, I do have a problem with Clinton not keeping his campaign promise (but hey, thats a problem with all politicians) and giving in to outside pressures. But then as you mentioned, it has become outdated in our modern day culture.
(4 Nov '09) Melissa Kenfield says,
Ah, "decriminalize" was poor word choice on my part, and I apologize for any confusion from that. Though they are expelled from military service, it is not a criminal action.

“we already allow them to serve as long as they don't tell anyone, so lets not forget that they are not banned, per se, they are just not out.”

A very fine distinction. Any defense of expecting people to remain in the closet is discriminatory. I assume from your lack of personal outrage at this that your are heterosexual. Imagine being told that you can’t talk about your girlfriend, or girls you are interested in. Imagine you can’t have posters or calendars with bikini babes on them. Imagine that you can’t go out to bars and hit on cute girls, and have to hide the fact that they are the object of your desire. Imagine hearing everybody around you talking about all of the above, talking about their romantic interests, random pursuits, and romps in the hay. Try living like that for any length of time and then tell me that it is in any way acceptable that the military expects that they just don’t tell anyone. I see it as a human rights issue more than anything else, at this point. And it’s not a “small steps” thing. Desegregation of the troops was not done in small steps. Desegregation of schools and other public places was not in small steps. The enfranchisement of women was not done in small steps. Not being the ones discriminated against, it's a lot easier for us to say "small steps" than it would be for those who have to conceal such a crucial part of their personhood for the sake of their job.
(4 Nov '09) indignant asshole says,
"I assume from your lack of personal outrage at this that your are heterosexual."

What the fuck kind of argument is this? He could be gay, straight, or fuck barstools, how does it fucking matter?

You should assume from his lack of personal outrage that he's intelligent, professional, and interested in discussing the real merits of this issue.

Man, what a jackass thing to say.
(4 Nov '09) EVERY UTD STUDENT EVAH says,
"Imagine being told that you can’t talk about your girlfriend, or girls you are interested in. Imagine you can’t have posters or calendars with bikini babes on them. Imagine that you can’t go out to bars and hit on cute girls, and have to hide the fact that they are the object of your desire. Imagine hearing everybody around you talking about all of the above, talking about their romantic interests, random pursuits, and romps in the hay."

...so imagine you're in CV? But, I kid...and am in CV, it's all in good fun.

Melissa, while you make a good point about the "closet" being discriminatory, I feel like your argument had some flaws. As the above poster has pointed out, claiming he should be outraged just weakens the credibility of an intelligent and reasonable poster, which I can see you are.
Also, I think your logic/rhetoric/what-have-you is flawed. Those things you mentioned- desegregation of troops,of schools, etc.- were all small steps in a larger goal. While the struggle for equality has had defining and large scale moments, the more lasting and permanent changes have been done in the small steps.
I think there are plenty of examples in history that show that when colossal societal changes are shoved down people's throats, they tend to vomit them back up. gotta make 'em bite size.
(5 Nov '09) Braeden Mayer says,
I think my comment about homosexuals serving in the closet is being taken wrong here. What I meant to say is that by allowing them to serve openly, it won't piss off the 'important countries' aka. The middle east simply because homosexuals are already serving in the military, just not 'outed'. So outing them wouldn't make a difference in the anger level of countries in the middle east because they were already there in the first place. Therefore helping to justify the fact that we don't have to worry about middle eastern countries hating us as you pointed out in your first post, Melissa.

Also, I would have to agree that small steps are necessary. Desegregation didn't happen all at once. Arguably one of the first American institutions desegregated was the military. That is why I believe that we first need to turn there with homosexuality. Lets take a step in the right direction first, and then move on to adding a clause in somewhere that 'one shall not discriminate on a basis of sexual orientation'. And school segregation didn't happen all at once. There were schools that were still segregated in the 1970s. It is a small process and cannot all happen at once. It started with the military and Truman, then it moved to Brown v. Board, and then it was the Civil Rights Act. And look at our society, is there still hatred, of course and there always will me some, but we have advanced so much from where we were the second before the Civil Rights Act was passed in '64. Change is a slow process, its not something that can all happen at once. You gotta take it slow.

Oh and let's not forget, Melissa, I wrote the article. We are on the same side on this issue :)
(5 Nov '09) Gay!Army!7188Rox! says,
"I think there are plenty of examples in history that show that when colossal societal changes are shoved down people's throats, they tend to vomit them back up. gotta make 'em bite size."

That is a great goddamn quote and I wish I'd written it. You need to start writing for AMP, whoever you are.
(5 Nov '09) Melissa Kenfield says,
Ah I definitely know that, but I am also a fan of stirring the coals. We may have some differences in opinion in what constitutes a "baby step." I see Truman's Exec Order as a giant leap; baby steps in that context would be to gradually desegregate some of the units and evaluating how that affected performance. Lawrence v Texas was a huge leap for gay rights and one that has caused massive effects. A handful of states allowing gay marriage... baby steps. And just look at Maine. That baby just fell down and broke a bone.
(5 Nov '09) Braeden Mayer says,
If you really want to point out semantics, I used the term 'small steps', not baby steps, but I think it is rather irrelevant to argue semantics. I am glad that you get the whole gist of my article. But I am also glad that you challenged the way I thought, because that is what this article was meant to be--thought provoking.

Also, I know. I was really disappointed in Maine as well. Maybe instead of trying to legislate marriage in the states or state courts, we can move to the military first? ;)
(12 Nov '09) Person in Braeden's RHET group says,
Whoah! Braeden has opinions... how could this be!? ...

Oh, and I noticed that you've got 3 giant capital letters to begin your topics. I thought it would've been cool if you made 4 of them spell out D-A-D-T ... you know... to keep the theme going.

Military Homosexual Complex

Why 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' undermines our military and our Constitution

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