Politically active groups on and off campus are set to lobby a sympathetic newly-minted President of the United States to lift the ban that prevents open homosexuals from serving in the U. S. military. In Washington, D. C., a George Washington University freshman is rapidly becoming their poster child. “Shouts of ‘Stop the hate!’ could be heard blocks away as nearly 60 students made their way from Kogan Plaza to the White House to protest the military’s ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy on Saturday,” Lauren French reported in the GW Hatchet on March 2.
“Allied in Pride organized the protest after freshman Todd Belok was dismissed from GW’s NROTC last semester for kissing another male in front of two other NROTC members, said Allied in Pride President Michael Komo.”
“Students brandished signs that read “Repeal ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ ‘I might be straight but I’m not narrow-minded’ and ‘Equality Now’ while chanting for equal rights for the 12,500 service members who have been dismissed from the military based on sexual orientation.” NROTC stands for Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps.
French goes on to note that “The crowd was not exclusively GW students. After reaching out to local universities, Komo said many expressed interest in participating in the protest, including a [sic] GUPride, a gay rights group from Georgetown.”
“Belok said he received advice from lawyers at the Servicemembers’ Legal Defense Network but has decided against legal action,” French reported in another story posted on February 12. “Instead, Belok is now working with the SLDN to petition Congress and the Obama administration to change the law that got him expelled.”
“He hopes his efforts will allow himself and other gay members to serve.” It very well may.
President Obama’s efforts to lift the ban are reminiscent of President Clinton’s. In 1993, “Congress wisely studied Clinton’s proposal, dubbed ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ and ultimately rejected it as unworkable,” Elaine Donnelly of the Center on Military Readiness reminds us. “Instead, veto-proof majorities in both houses decided to codify the Defense Department regulations that had been in place since 1981.”
“The resulting law (Section 654, Title 10), which Senator McCain voted for and courts have upheld as constitutional several times, clearly states that homosexuals are not eligible for military service.”
Three relevant passages from the law read:
“(13) The prohibition against homosexual conduct is a long-standing element of military law that continues to be necessary in the unique circumstances of military service.
“(14) The armed forces must maintain personnel policies that exclude persons whose presence in the armed forces would create an unacceptable risk to the armed forces’ high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability.
“(15) 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.”
The compromise that a Democratic U. S. Congress worked out with the last Democrat elected president was to drop the question on homosexuality from the military application from while codifying the ban itself, hence the asking and telling part. Nevertheless, the most informed observers think that gays can serve in the military if they just keep a low profile while remaining actively homosexual.
If the new president and his admirers in the media and academia have their way, this perception may soon mirror reality. In fact, U. S. Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher, D-Calif. , introduced The Military Readiness Enhancement Act of 2009 on March 3 with that very objective in mind.
The proposed Act would “enhance the readiness of the Armed Forces by replacing the current policy concerning homosexuality in the Armed Forces, referred to as ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ with a policy of nondiscrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. The bill has 112 co-sponsors.
By the way, the Military Times found that 58 percent of active duty personnel oppose repealing the law. One-quarter of those surveyed would either leave or consider leaving if the law were repealed.
Of the current policy, Rep. Tauscher claims that“75 percent of the American people think that this should be overturned.” That would be equivalent to the proportion of black and Hispanic voters who voted to ban gay marriage, which she also opposes, in California.
Malcolm A. Kline is the executive director of Accuracy in Academia.
