General John Shalikashvili, former joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, said in an op-ed this week that change is needed on our Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Pursue, Don't Harass (DADT) policy for gay servicemembers. (While the oft-dropped "Don't Pursue" has always been part of the policy, seems as if Defense Department added the bit on harassment in 2000.) DADT is a Washington creation, a compromise made by the whole city. In 1992, at the White House, Clinton wanted to issue an executive order opening the military to gay soldiers. Across the river, the Pentagon objected. Up on Capitol Hill, the Senate got a moratorium on any policy change and commenced to hold a series of hearings. When through the months, a "don't ask, don't tell" consensus emerged, a battered Clinton claimed it as his new plan. Congress passed the compromise into law, Clinton signed it, and the Defense Department implemented it as policy for U.S. armed servicemembers throughout the world.
The relevant section of the law, 10 U.S.C § 654, reads in part:
The presence in the armed forces of persons who demonstrate a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts would create an unacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability.
Perhaps natural for policy made in the way this one was, in practice it's confusing stuff. Testifying before Congress at the time, even then Defense Secretary Les Aspin wasn't sure whether or not a declaration like "I am a homosexual" would result in a military separation.
In many ways, the policy today is nobody's child. No one really wants to claim it as their own. As it stands, power to change it rests with Congress, who can pass new law to guide DOD regulations. The process of getting Congress to pass such a law would be greatly eased by getting DOD buy-in. And for its part, DOD has long argued that its hands are tied by Congress. (The statement of one Undersecretary of Defense is fairly typical of the Pentagon's public stand on the matter: "The Department's position is to administer the law in a manner that is both fair and consistent.")
Every so often, we get a bit of information on the policy's impact. In a time where U.S. efforts around the world are hampered by the lack of critical language speakers, we're dismissing linguists -- between 1998 and 2003, 26 Arabic and Farsi speakers had been removed. Gay soldiers have served honorably and oftentimes quiet about their sexuality are nonetheless cast aside. The Washington Post has a fantastic story on Cathleen Glover. The military trained her in Arabic at the Defense Language Institute. She thought she'd serve quietly and keep her sexuality under wraps. No one would ask and she just wouldn't tell. Great plan, but it turned out to be difficult to hide who she was day-in-and-day-out. Glover was discharged and when the Post caught up with her, cleaning pools in the DC area. (I was reading back over a post on my personal blog on the topic. I commented last January on the dismissal of both these linguists and a score of medical professionals: "The Defense Department has managed to rid the world of one evil -- the highly-trained-and-mission-critical-but- queer military specialist." If I may, heh.)
There's been debate over how much money the policy has cost us, how much the military has spent to implement it. The Government Accountability Office pegged the recruitment and training costs for the some 9,500 troops separated since 1994 at $190 million. A University of California commission said GAO was lowballing it and that it was more like $363 million.
Much of what we do know about what the policy has wrought has come
from the persistence of one lawmaker, northeastern Massachusetts
Representative Marty Meehan. Meehan has been calling
for and end to DADT for years now. H.R.
1059, a bill he introduced in the 109th Congress, would have
mandated that the military "may not discriminate on the basis
of sexual orientation against any member of the armed forces or
against any person seeking to become a member of the armed forces."
Meehan will likely introduce the measure again this year.
Say Meehan gains traction, Congress takes action, and DADT becomes
a campaign issue in 2008. Candidates will face a different world
than Clinton did when he announced his intentions in 1992. In his
op-ed, Shalikashvili cited a Zogby
survey of soldiers just back from Iraq and Afghanistan that
indicates a high level of comfortability with gay colleagues. The Pew
Center found
in March of last year that 60% of Americans support allowing
"gays to serve openly." But to pick on one potential presidential
'08er, John McCain ain't one of those Americans. He has reportedly
called the policy "very
effective." (Not to be confused with the statement by a
Servicemembers Legal Defense Network spokesperson that DADT is "a
very effective weapon of vengeance.")
With the brand-new 110th Congress, what are the prospects for changing
DADT? Unclear this early in the game. But Meehan, for one, is a
member of House Armed Services, the committee of jurisdiction. Armed
Services will meet at
2pm on Wednesday (the 10th) to organize for this congress, and
if Meehan is given chairmanship of the new Oversight and Investigations
committee as
expected, he'll have a nice perch from which to call hearings
and push for legislation. Complicating things a bit-- the new committee
Chairman, Democrat Ike Skelton of Missouri, reportedly
supports Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Pursue, Don't Harass as
it stands.
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