Do Ask, Do Tell

Tom Dooley, Navy M.D. -- Picture courtesy of Wikpedia

by blogSpotter
Don't Ask, Don't Tell is a term used for the 1993 Clinton-era policy which asserts that "Sexual orientation will not be a bar to service ....excepting individuals who engage in homosexual conduct". The law was the bastard child that came of Clinton's campaign promise to allow gays in the military and Senator Sam Nunn's dogged opposition to that same idea.

Throughout American history, gay men have been drummed out of the military based on accusations of "sodomy" or morals charges. LGB people were given discharges labeled blue, undesirable or dishonorable -- all with various degrees of censure and denial of benefits. There has always been some ambivalence within the military. Navy M.D. Thomas Dooley was a noted humanitarian hero of the 1950’s -- he was allowed to resign honorably despite a general knowledge of his homosexuality. The 1957 Crittendon Report was even ahead of its time in stating that gay people were no greater a security risk than heterosexuals.

Up until 1981, military personnel could choose to retain people suspected of being gay if it was thought that the behavior was a temporary aberration -- a basically straight person acted out homosexually. This was dubbed the “queen for a day” policy and points up major problems of fairness, enforcement and consistency surrounding these types of policies.

How has Don’t As, Don’t Tell worked? In years since it went in to effect, the number of gays discharged soared from 617 in 1994 to 1273 in 2001. The number has settled down some since then, but still -- no significant reduction in the discharge of gay people. The Government Accounting Office conservatively estimates that roughly $180 million dollars was spent recruiting and training the replacements of gays being discharged from 1994 thru 2003. In the Iraq War, highly valuable Farsi translators (among other critical functions) were sacrificed to the cause of "Heterogeneity".

If you’re not gay, you might wonder what all this has to do with the price of tea in China. It does tie back to things relevant in your own experience after all. President Obama pledged to allow gays in the military as part of his 2008 campaign rhetoric. After being elected, he promptly scuttled DADT discussions to 2010 and said that the Joint Chiefs of Staff would need to formulate any new ruling. Then more recently the Obama White House stripped the National Defense Act of a provision that would end funding for DADT enforcement. Effectively, Obama reversed his position. He didn’t just exhibit “weak sister” behavior, he did an about-face.

All of this is being said with an eye on the health care debate. Obama has already shown that he’s willing to concoct an unholy compromise as a way of conflict avoidance. Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is already a monstrous political byproduct of the Clinton days -- a half-assed solution that arguably made things worse for LGBT’s.

What kind of fish-nor-fowl, half-baked solution will the Obama team give us for health care? If we’re lucky, it will be something so heinous to both left and right that it never sees the light of day. Sometimes a compromise is just that -- a hobbled hybrid that serves nobody’s purpose. Obama has shown us that he has the silver tongue of an Am-Way salesman. He needs to show us that he has the cajones to stand on principles and follow his ideas to fruition. Bush 1 (Herbert Walker Bush) was somewhat of a conciliatory man who looked for compromises; he was also thought of as a human weather vane and was a one-term President. We have to hope that Obama can help to shape our opinions with intelligence and clarity rather than simply react to them.

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