"Don't Ask, Don't Tell" an Affront to Our National Security

Published January 04, 2009 @ 07:16AM PT

Don't Ask Don't Tell Guest blogger Janessa Goldbeck writes below that 12,500 people have been discharged from the U.S. military under the archaic "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, including 60 Arabic linguists. The DADT policy has been in effect since 1994. With the U.S. fighting two wars, are 12,500 qualified U.S. soldiers being turned away from service enough of a reason to overturn DADT? Janessa's answer is a crystal clear yes. Anything less is an affront to our national security.

"I was an Arabic translator. After joining the Navy in 2003, I attended the Defense Language Institute, graduated in the top 10 percent of my class and then spent two years giving our troops the critical translation services they desperately needed. I was ready to serve in Iraq.

But I never got to. In March, I was ousted from the Navy under the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, which mandates dismissal if a service member is found to be gay."

So begins Stephen Benjamin's story, a former petty officer second class in the Navy who lost his job in October 2006 because he is gay.

On the campaign trail, Barack Obama promised, if elected, to repeal the policy, which prohibits any homosexual or bisexual person from disclosing his or her sexual orientation or from speaking about any homosexual relationships while serving in the United States armed forces.

It's about time. More than 12,500 service members have been discharged under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" since the policy became law in 1994.

Recently Colin Powell, the original author of the policy, made headlines by saying that the US should "definitely" re-evaluate the policy in a CNN interview. A 2007 CNN survey showed that 79 percent of Americans believe that LGBTs should be allowed to serve openly, up from 57 percent in 1992.
When will Obama follow through - or will he?

Writes Scott Stifler at the Servicemembers Legal Defense Fund:

Early indications are that he'll do so in a manner that engages the military leadership and Congress. He hopes thereby to avoid the way Clinton's handling made it a lighting-rod issue. [Aubrey Sarvis, Executive Director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network], is also optimistic that Obama's diplomatic approach will ensure he avoids the political traps sprung by Clinton's ill-timed, confrontational approach to the issue: "Unlike Clinton, this president elect has already reached out to the senior military and said he wants to work with them."

Clinton, Sarvis recalls, faltered when he "never reached out until after he was sworn in and after he realized he did not have the support of the Defense Department or Congress. So already president elect Obama has extended his hand to the senior leadership and said he recognizes they play a key role in that they'll be the ones who will have to implement these changes."

With two wars facing the nation and more than 60 Arabic linguists having been kicked out of the military since "don't ask, don't tell" was instituted, the policy is not just an affront to the gay community, but an affront to our national security.

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Comments (20)

Janessa,

As a retired military chaplain and ecclesiastic endorser, I am acutely aware of this issue. Serving in silence does essential damage to integrity, since you accept denying your truth to others and then, ultimately, to yourself.

Neo-liberals like William Jefferson Clinton pre-empted himself and made DADT a reality. The compromise removed the POTUS from an executive decision to integrate the forces as had Truman for AA heterosexuals in 1948. DADT repeal now requires Congressional passage.

Barack Hussein Obama II is a neo-liberal. He is a person who defines his integrity in terms of triangulation and compromise. If the neo-conservatives provide him cover, or classic Goldwater conservatives like Colin Powell, take the libertarian brand of the GOP to give him cover, we will see the end of DADT as we know it.

I am still not convinced that the new DADT or UCMJ regulations won't have additional hooks to help the neocon accomodation for their base. With neo-liberals, gays and lesbians are a disposable brand in their base. The back of the bus or under the bus.....for LBGT military personnel, as with citizens, it matters little.

Posted by A B on 01/04/2009 @ 08:03AM PT
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i think this is an employment rights issue and will come after/if GAY AND LESBIAN marriage rights are decided.
the problem is and has been on many issues NO LAWYERs TO TAKE THe IsSuE TO COURT MEANS NO RIGHTS.
-LIKE until many suicides- lack of PSYCHE and other basic medical care even retuning veterans and veterans since vietnam! SO FAR NO One with legal ability willing to take on the military have all fully decided in court to make perm change to law.

i think USA still has a very long way to go on many human rights and survival needs EVEN in many cases of basic health needs. sex and relationship needs are somewhere down the list. After health mh care housing including heat food clothing etc.. which the USA IS STILL FAILING ON.

Posted by DARLENE MATTHEWS on 01/04/2009 @ 10:36AM PT
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Please help us to rise 3000 voices to let government hear our voices. We need continue to rise our voices after 31 Dec 2008.
Please join our action "Ban Mind Control/Directed Energy Weapons abuse and torture"
http://criminaljustice.change.org/actions/view/ban_mind_controldirected_energy_weapons_abuse_and_torture

Posted by Soleilmavis L on 01/04/2009 @ 04:22PM PT
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They should keep "don't ask don't tell". Sexual orientation discussion is not relevant in the performance of the job. They should remove any restrictions on enlisting or staying in the military. There is only one job I think of where sexual orientation is relevant, and that is only legal in Nevada.

Posted by Charlie Reed on 01/05/2009 @ 04:32AM PT
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Charlie....consider this from an ole retired chappie O-5...who served in silence in a different time with different laws and different DSM definitions.

The UCMJ in nations where gays serve openly still has equality of treatment under statute where sexual inappropriateness is addressed. Like serving with blacks initially, there were racists who had to control their passions in order to serve in accordance with the uniform code of military justice.

DADT was an attempt to codify homophobia, and use the same arguments that they used against Truman for integrating the armed forces in 1948. Equal justice under law is neither liberal nor conservative.....it is the basis of the American cohesion. We are not one race or one ethnic people. Without law, there is anarchy and a reversion to Old World hatreds left on their shores.

Happy New Year old friend, to you and yours. CHAPPIE RAY

Posted by A B on 01/05/2009 @ 05:09AM PT
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This needs to go!

While I'm here might I ask everyone to please vote for the Uniting American Families Act under Immigration Reform. It's for equal immigration rights for same-sex binational couples. Anyone how loves someone out side the USA needs our help! Please help push this though. With all of your help, your friends, and family we can help push the message to Obama that America needs UAFA now! Please take a moment and vote.

Here is a link if it does not work use click "ideas" on the tool bar and look.

http://www.change.org/ideas/view/equal_immigration_rights_for_same_sex_binational_couples

Thank you very much

Xavier

Posted by Xavier Von Otwell on 01/05/2009 @ 07:28AM PT
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Ray, Perhaps I should clarify my position. I do not believe in any discrimination based on sexual orientation. As a person who works around people who talk about sex far too much at work, I think it is inapproriate. I do realize however that maybe I am a bit of an old fart/prude.

Posted by Charlie Reed on 01/05/2009 @ 11:41AM PT
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I thought that you said old prune....if so, I AM AN OLD RAISIN.

Posted by A B on 01/05/2009 @ 11:48AM PT
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"It is of great importance to set a resolution, not to be shaken, never to tell an untruth. There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, so contemptible; and he who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world's believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good disposition."--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Peter Carr, 19 August 1785

Posted by S N on 01/05/2009 @ 12:21PM PT
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All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.
Thomas Jefferson

Posted by A B on 01/05/2009 @ 12:42PM PT
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Check out the Global Pulse video on this, showing how different TV news around the world are covering the issue.

Watch it here: http://www.linktv.org/video/3438

I'm an intern with Link TV, the nonprofit that produces Global Pulse. Interesting to see how the rest of the world is reporting on the news. Check out our blog too at www.lintv.org/globalpulse/blog

Posted by Alison Dale on 01/05/2009 @ 03:11PM PT
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"I think every good Christian ought to kick Falwell right in the ass."

Barry Goldwater (1909-98), US senator, 1964 GOP Presidential Nominee, major general, USAFR, and classic libertarian conservative.

Sometimes conservatives prove that they are worshippers of dead radicals.

Posted by A B on 01/05/2009 @ 03:27PM PT
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Barry Goldwater was more concerned about whether or not a man could shoot straight, as opposed to exclusively being straight.

Senator Goldwater was also a reserve pilot and a major general.

Posted by A B on 01/05/2009 @ 03:29PM PT
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Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} "Democracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy, such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes and no man's life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure, and every one of these will soon mould itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable cruelty of one or a very few." – John Adams (An Essay on Man's Lust for Power, 29 August 1763) Reference: Original Intent, Barton (338); original The Papers of John Adams, Taylor, ed., vol. 1 (83)

Posted by S N on 01/05/2009 @ 06:58PM PT
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DADT confused the heck out of me. Do we really think that just because someone is gay they can't serve their country? Are the other soldiers too homophobic to be around a gay person? Personally, I think that's the problem. It's not the gay people, it's the "straights" next to them. Maybe NO ONE should get to talk about sexual orientation in the military. Maybe we should have a celibate military wound tight enough to be a truly efficient killing machine?

"There is only one job I think of where sexual orientation is relevant, and that is only legal in Nevada."

For the record, it is only legal in counties with less than 400,000 people and ONLY if the county chooses to allow it.

Posted by Lisa Smolen on 01/06/2009 @ 10:15AM PT
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Lisa, thanks for the correction. I haven't been there yet. CR

Posted by Charlie Reed on 01/06/2009 @ 12:06PM PT
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I agree with Lisa. If gay couples can't talk about their sexual orientation, no one should. Just because they're gay doesn't mean they aren't doing their job well. It should have nothing to do with your job performance.

Posted by M N on 01/07/2009 @ 05:52PM PT
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Lisa, my friend. As we have discussed, terms mean alot. The RW have used words to describe new meanings.

The code word "homosexual" is one. They do not describe themselves as "heterosexuals". This demeans the psychological aspect of sexuality. It is psychosexual orientation.

Therefore, there is more to relate in either opposite or same-sex situations beyond whom you shagged last night. It is about the depth of commitment that either of your marriages have upon your lives, or the lives of your children.

I understand service to your country. I am a fifth generation officer. Private Sawyer served in the Revolutionary War and his father in the French and Indian war. There was my great-grandfather who fought in the Grand Army of the Republic with President Lincoln, World War I was my grandfather's war, and WWII and Korea were my father's war. Vietnam was mine.

I served in the Army Chaplain's Corps, retiring as military endorser with the rank of lieutenant colonel. Lesbian and gay men serve in needless silence along with legally out Allied and NATO soldiers. In Afghanistan or in Brussels, at NATO headquarters where Belgium is one of the nine same sex civil marriage legal nations.

Bill Clinton and former Senator Sam Nunn of GA (not surprised that he is a DEMOCRAT IN NAME ONLY?). Both were DLC and neolib and it was all about Bill the Adulterer getting his agenda passed. DOMA assured him a second term.

END DADT. You should visit a website that I must locate and then return with. Retired general and flagship officers have retired and announced that they were gay or lesbian. Officers, NCO's and enlisted ranks serve every day for you. YOU OWE THEM THE ABILITY TO LIVE IN THEIR TRUTH.

Posted by A B on 01/08/2009 @ 04:28AM PT
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www.sldn.org is the website for the end of DADT by veterans and soldiers, sailors and airmen.

Posted by A B on 01/08/2009 @ 04:32AM PT
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Several friends have emailed me. WHY did you serve in silence? WHY can't today's gay soldiers serve in silence?

Times have gratefully changed. Gay affirming churches had not begun contextual sexual theological pronouncements until 1976. The medical and psychiatric community had us as psychosexually dysfunctional until 1976, and sodomy laws were not changed until the 1980's. Today, those three pillars support the alternate psychosexual orientation and also recognize the monogamous and long-term coupling and family formation today as well.

The rest of the industrialised world has done so. Unfortunately, the USA saw the hijacking of the GOP and the rise of Dominionism ( www.theocracywatch.org ) and theocracy. They earn hundreds of millions of dollars from low information folks.

Gen X and Y - we're counting on you to change the world for the better !!

Posted by A B on 01/08/2009 @ 04:51AM PT
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