During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama said he favored repealing the military's homophobic "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. Just last month, before the inauguration, Obama's press secretary Robert Gibbs simply answered "Yes," when asked whether the new president would take action to overturn the law.
Under the failed DADT policy, gays and lesbians in the armed forces are prohibited from serving openly. According to Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, 12,500 people who have served in the military were discharged under DADT since it took effect in 1993.
So it was with some surprise Sunday when we read an article in the Boston Globe that said the Obama administration "is telling the Pentagon and gay rights advocates that it will have to study the implications of national security and enlist more support in Congress" before trying to repeal DADT.
Another study?
The SLDN Web site is chock full of links to reports – reports by the agency itself, reports by Congress and reports from other government agencies. More than 100 former high-ranking military personnel have taken a stand against DADT (and some have come out as gay in the process), as have numerous politicians, including some Republicans. In fact, a comprehensive review of DADT was just completed in 2008, which found that there is no evidence showing that openly gay service would harm the military, and a great deal of evidence showing it would not.
We are well aware that repealing DADT will not happen quickly, in fact, it's doubtful that any such action will occur this year. But we're troubled by the administration's sudden, apparent need to study "national security" issues as they relate to out gay service members. A critical problem of DADT is that it resulted in discharging service members who had highly specialized skills like translators and Arabic linguists. In those cases, the military invested considerable sums to train personnel, only to drum them out of the service later for being gay.
National security or military discipline issues seem to be a red herring as it provides cover to those who don't favor repeal or who want to postpone reviewing the policy.
The Globe article noted that sources said Obama and his allies in Congress need to convince lawmakers in both parties that repeal is necessary. And while Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Massachusetts), a member of the Armed Services Committee, is preparing to introduce legislation to lift the ban, an aide told the paper that he won't move forward until he has a Republican co-sponsor. In the Senate, that will be tough.
The aide went on to tell the paper that several Democratic senators were "shaky" and "on the fence" over the issue. That's no surprise to us: for years Democrats have had to find their sea legs when standing up for LGBT rights – especially at the federal level. Still, it's disappointing that all those Democrats in Congress who were swooning over Obama during the campaign apparently were not paying attention to his stated opposition to DADT and his remarks about equality for LGBTs in general.
In addition to SLDN, the Palm Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara has long been considered an authority on DADT. Nathaniel Frank, a research fellow there and the author of the forthcoming book, Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America, told a wire service that he has reviewed "all of the evidence on gays in the military, and there is simply no question about whether or not a policy change would undermine unit cohesion. It would not."
Gary Gates, Ph.D., another longtime researcher of LGBT issues and a scholar at UCLA, also has authored a number of studies on DADT. "The proposal to study 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' yet again seems unnecessary," he said. "Extensive scholarly research already shows that by allowing 65,000 gays and lesbians currently in uniform to serve openly will not harm the military in any way."
Aubrey Sarvis, the executive director of SLDN, wrote a piece for Huffington Post this week that was critical of the administration's newfound stance. While he acknowledged that more congressional support is needed, he correctly pointed out that this latest call for another study is merely a stalling tactic. That would give homophobes like Elaine Donnelly, president of the conservative Center for Military Readiness, time to mobilize the opposition. What Donnelly and others seem to miss, however, is that public opinion on allowing gays to openly serve has increased dramatically since the Clinton-era DADT was implemented. It is the one gay rights issue that has the broadest public support. Sarvis noted that last July, an ABC News Washington Post poll showed 75 percent favored open service, with only 22 percent opposed. This is a stark change from 1993.
In order to repeal DADT, the Defense Department needs to be on board. And Obama needs to provide leadership. The Military Readiness Enhancement Act introduced in the last Congress garnered the support of 149 House members from both parties.
We don't need another study. What we do need is an intensified lobbying effort by SLDN and others, support from the Congress, and leadership from this administration to fulfill its stated policy goals to finally lift this discriminatory ban.