Clinton's patchwork

When Bill Clinton passed "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) in 1993 as a compromise between those who wanted to maintain the ban on homosexual military service and constituents who wanted it lifted, he couldn't truly have believed a middle-ground would hold for long. The policy, which stipulates that homosexuals can serve in the military as long as they remain closeted (at least to their fellow service-members), temporarily assuaged the competing interests pushing him to act. It did not, however, resolve more fundamental questions concerning the relationship between the military and society-at-large when it comes to matters of social justice.

Now, fifteen years later, debates over gay marriage have ushered the culture warriors back into the spotlight. Gay rights activists, the Religious Right, and everyone in between have resumed arguments about the degree to which the military should reflect societal attitudes and vice versa. While opponents of homosexuals (or open homosexuals) in the military shirk at the notion that we should craft military policy on anything other than strategic calculations, some still hope that the institution we charge with defending our values can also help shape them.

The crucible

Because the racial integration of the military preceded the heart of the civil rights movement, some historians have openly wondered whether the armed services served as a "crucible" for change - a microcosm of society in which shared goals and a culture of fraternity washed away prejudices that culture taught the soldiers on the "outside." Perhaps, when these soldiers re-entered society, they came armed with the knowledge that their diverse peers were perfectly capable fighters and good companions, and given the respect that veterans command, these ideas began to diffuse throughout communities. Eventually, society as a whole caught up to what the troops learned in the military - when all that's standing between you and death is the soldier at your side, it doesn't particularly matter what race he is.

Given a different metric, though, the military may have been more reactive to growing racial tolerance than it was active in promoting it. After all, African-Americans were granted the right to vote (at least formally) nearly a century before they were allowed to serve in the military. Women were not meaningfully integrated into the military until the advent of the All-Volunteer Force in the mid-70s, decades after they achieved suffrage. Though homosexuals have the right to vote, the potential parallels are clear: perhaps they just have to wait their turn on the timeline of social progressivism. Since women and blacks had to wait for society-at-large to deem them equal participants before they were allowed to serve in the armed forces, it may take a stronger push for gay marriage before homosexuals have any chance of being part of a more institutionally tolerant military.

Guilty until proven innocent

If the military is a mirror of societal values, though, a very scary picture comes into view. Although DADT has a third, less-discussed component - the "Don't Harass, Don't Pursue" clause - it hasn't stopped homophobic interests within the military from taking the law as a tacit acceptance of their behavior and a license to commit egregious acts of hate. Even if military homophobia preceded DADT and would likely continue after a repeal of it, the policy has specifically enabled dehumanizing practices like "lesbian baiting," where women, already in a historically marginalized position within the military, are presented with a choice: have sex with their superior or be accused publicly of being a lesbian.

Beyond lesbian baiting, DADT forces homosexuals to keep their sexual identity a secret. This central mandate of the law tells homosexuals that it's OK to be gay - just as long as they're the "right kind" of gay: the kind that keeps it on the inside, doesn't participate in gay rights advocacy groups, and defines sexuality in purely heteronormative terms, where homosexuality is never a social practice that requires its public projection but is rather a mere physical act that can be kept private. If you wouldn't mind watching your straight officers have relationships while you are prohibited from having one yourself and must live in perpetual fear of being found out, then the military might be the place for you.

Ironically, a seemingly opposite problem is also relevant: service-members who don't view their homosexuality as a central aspect of their lives don't really have the option of keeping it to themselves. To submit a claim for relief under the "Don't Pursue" provision, a soldier might have to come out. Additionally, there are examples of soldiers being discharged as a result of officers uncovering their off-duty "gay activities." The burden of proof is always on the accused (a number of people have been discharged on mere "suspicion"). If a service-member is "charged" with homosexuality, he or she is put in the bizarre position of having to prove that he or she isn't gay. One can easily see how traumatic an experience this could be if the accused individual actually is gay.

DADT encourages an atmosphere of suspicion that forces the gay service-member to make sexuality a central part of his or her life even if he or she intends to remain closeted. The constant fear of being "out-ed" means that the gay service-member will have difficulty going very long without thinking about his or her sexuality. Homosexual soldiers might feel compelled to develop strategies to conceal their secret - for instance, they might learn to pick their words meticulously, lest they be betrayed by a slip of the tongue. Soldiers can feel intense paranoia even if they are not under an immediate threat of prosecution. The gay soldier is thus reduced to a purely sexualized being; nay, a purely sexualized object.

Don't ask, don't tell, don't think

Those who support DADT are very fond of the anecdote, for they have little else to support their oft-repeated, rarely substantiated assertions that DADT promotes morale, unit cohesion, and overall operational capacity of the military. In fact, the statistics and multiple examples suggest just the opposite.

Most importantly, there are already a number of openly gay service-members, out of the closet because of the good fortune of being paired with a particularly tolerant commander. This is not an isolated phenomenon, either - critics of DADT have some anecdotes of their own, usually consisting of interviews with soldiers who find it inconceivable, given their experiences with gay compatriots, that a repeal of DADT would have any effect on cohesion. Such anti-DADT anecdotes are usually supported by poll data, though, that suggests that a repeal of the law would engender little backlash from within the military. Critics of the policy are also quick to point out that units with openly gay soldiers have faced few to no apparent problems.

Furthermore, American police and fire departments, which mirror many of the structures of the military (including the close barracks), have many openly gay members, yet no apparent problems. Israel, which undoubtedly has an even more militaristic society than the US (and thus one even more sensitive to anything that might hinder its armed forces), proudly allows homosexuals to serve openly; they have encountered few negative repercussions as a result. Israel's decision to allow open homosexuals to serve was accompanied by vocal opposition that closely mirrors the rhetoric from today's proponents of DADT - yet Israel's transition, like the US's 1948 integration of its military, went smoothly, proving that proponents of DADT rely on an a-historical logic.

DADT may actually be severely hampering our military's ability to fight and win wars. Some of the military's top Arabic specialists have been discharged under DADT, while countless numbers of qualified personnel have been deterred from joining altogether. Given the overstretched state of our military, we don't have the troops to spare. While many experts have suggested that lifting DADT could immediately allow the armed forces to recruit 41,000 additional soldiers, the policy has remained firmly in place, forcing troops to participate in extremely long tours of duty that have devastating effects on their morale. The constant troop rotations necessary to sustain such an under-equipped military also have negative consequences for cohesion, as soldiers don't have enough time to gel with their units before they are shipped out again. Readiness is also affected since the time for training and rest is drastically reduced.

Additionally, DADT creates communal suspicion that undermines the harmony of units. According to some experts, in a phenomenon called "immunosuppression," forced closeting generates such high levels of stress that gay soldiers become exponentially more likely to contract communicable diseases. These diseases can then spread throughout the barracks and further undermine troop readiness.

Finally, DADT means that our soldiers don't have the experience to know how to deal with homosexual members of foreign militaries (like NATO) during joint-training exercises. In an increasingly globalized world, any harm to military interoperability could have devastating consequences (though the fact that such joint-training exercises still go smoothly might be further proof that lifting DADT would have no discernable negative effect). Given these realities, DADT seems like a pretty poor military "strategy."

One small step for [gay] man...

Repealing DADT would certainly not be a panacea. Just like any state-based approach to change, it must be supplemented with grass-roots efforts to promote tolerance if it is to have any effect on the prejudices of society as a whole.

Getting rid of such a disastrous policy is, however, a necessary start. How do we expect society to move forward when our military proclaims that homosexuals make inferior soldiers? DADT serves as a blemish upon our nation for its logical faultiness and its inconsistency with our constitutional ideals of equal protection and due process. Even our commitment to the separation of church and state is in question, as many legal scholars argue that the only conceivable basis for DADT is religious in nature (DADT is based on the logic that, faced with sporadic flare-ups of intolerance between straight and gay soldiers, we should remove the factor of the gay soldiers to keep the peace. Thus, DADT relies on the presumption that homosexuality is inherently immoral, for in what other situation is the victim of intolerance identified as the problem?) If America wishes to rekindle its image as a beacon of intellectualism and progressivism, a society where logic and tolerance trump hate and divisiveness, it has no choice but to do away with "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."