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| 'Don't ask, don't tell': US Air Force Reserve officer Maj. Margaret Witt has challenged her dismissal from the Air Force for
being a lesbian. john froschauer/ap/file |
U.S. military more open to gays serving openly
A group of retired generals, the current chief of the Joint Chiefs, and a majority of returning soldiers say full disclosure should replace "don't ask, don't tell" law.
By Brad Knickerbocker | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitorfrom the December 4, 2007 edition
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Is the US ready to join Britain, Israel, most NATO nations, and other countries in allowing gay men and lesbians to openly serve in the armed forces?
Most likely not any time soon. But the US military's longstanding aversion to having such service members among the ranks seems to be shifting, reflecting public opinion.
A group of 28 retired generals and admirals issued a letter calling on Congress to repeal the 1993 "don't ask, don't tell" act. The controversial law was passed early in the Clinton administration, prohibiting anyone who "demonstrate(s) a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts" from military service because it "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."
Retired Army Gen. John Shalikashvili, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says he's changed his mind on the subject and now favors opening up the military based on sexual orientation.
"Conversations [with the troops] showed me just how much the military has changed.... I now believe that if gay men and lesbians served openly in the United States military, they would not undermine the efficacy of the armed forces," General Shalikashvili wrote in a column in The New York Times earlier this year.
Current Joint Chiefs chairman Adm. Mike Mullen told Military Times last week, "If the American people want to change this policy and change this law, bringing it up through [Congress] and changing that policy and changing the law is the right answer."
Seventy-nine percent of the public approves repealing "don't ask, don't tell," according to a May 2007 CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll, including a plurality of Republicans.
A Zogby survey of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan found that 73 percent reported being "personally comfortable in the presence of gays and lesbians," and only 37 percent want to keep the current policy.
A bill to replace "don't ask, don't tell" with a policy of "nondiscrimination on the basis of sexual orientation" has 136 cosponsors in the House, mostly Democrats. Among the presidential candidates, Republicans say they want to keep "don't ask, don't tell" while Democrats support repealing it.
According to a 2004 Urban Institute report, some 65,000 gay men and lesbians serve in the military, including National Guard and reserve forces. Meanwhile, an estimated 10,000 to 12,000 service personnel have been dismissed under the law, including hundreds of linguists, medical personnel, and intelligence analysts, according to the Government Accountability Office.
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