Democrats’ gay support is welcome, but when will words translate to action?
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KEVIN NAFF
Friday, July 18, 2008
FIFTEEN YEARS AND more than 12,000 discharged service members later, we are still talking about “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
As the country continues to fight two wars and the military cruelly extends soldiers’ tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and admits felons and other less-than-qualified applicants to its ranks, thousands of brave out gay and lesbian Americans are told they can’t serve.
The faces on the cover of this week’s paper represent but a few of the thousands of careers and lives destroyed by the policy.
We listened intently during the protracted presidential primary race to words of support from the Democrats who ran. They support a repeal of the gay ban in words, if not deeds. Now, a year and a half after assuming control of Congress, Democrats have finally scheduled a hearing on the discriminatory policy for July 23.
Rep. Susan Davis (D-Calif.), chair of the House Armed Services personnel subcommittee, will hear testimony from those familiar with “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” including former Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Eric Alva, who is gay and the first U.S. service member wounded in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Interestingly, as of Wednesday, the subcommittee was not scheduled to hear from even one former service member who was expelled for being gay. That’s an unfortunate oversight and one that ought to be corrected. Congress cannot properly assess the damage this policy has wrought without hearing directly from those most impacted by it.
The hearing represents a promising if belated first step toward ending the ban. Unfortunately, a repeal is DOA under President Bush, and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain supports “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” But clearly opponents of the ban smell opportunity under an Obama administration and so are moving forward with hearings. Obama has said he opposes the policy, which must be repealed by Congress, but he has so far not pledged to make it a signature campaign issue, as Bill Clinton did in 1992.
Of course, that Clinton promise gave way to a capitulation that led us to this sorry state. Obama should lend his powerful voice for change to the calls for a full repeal of the law.
MEANWHILE, THE BLADE has tried for months to get an answer from Gen. Colin Powell (retired from the Army) as to whether he supports a repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy he once endorsed. Not surprisingly, his office has consistently declined to comment.
Last month, he finally spoke publicly about it at a forum in Aspen. Powell said that in 1993, he was concerned after hearing from troops, officers, military academy leaders, families and chaplains who “were having difficulty” with homosexuality. He appears to have no interest in hearing from the thousands of gay service members whose careers he helped derail.
“I’m not prepared to say we shouldn’t do away with it until you have talked to the people who have to execute it,” Powell said.
Echoing the sentiment of his former colleague and fellow architect of the policy, former Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) urged an abundance of caution and slow going but suggested that it’s time for a review of the policy.
“I think we will eventually have that, it’s a question of timing,” he said. “I think it’s appropriate to review it now.”
Nunn and Powell’s emphasis on holding hearings and taking more time ignores the fact that many generals and former military leaders responsible for executing the policy have already talked — and they support repealing the policy.
In an opinion piece for the New York Times last year, former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff John Shalikashvili called for a repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Former Secretary of Defense William Cohen also spoke out against the policy.
“Last year I held a number of meetings with gay soldiers and Marines, including some with combat experience in Iraq, and an openly gay senior sailor who was serving effectively as a member of a nuclear submarine crew,” wrote Shalikashvili. “These conversations showed me just how much the military has changed, and that gays and lesbians can be accepted by their peers.”
Shalikashvili, who was chair during the Clinton administration from 1993-97, said the argument that allowing openly gay troops to serve would lower morale, undermine unit cohesion or cause recruitment to drop, is no longer valid.
And just last week, four more retired high-ranking officers called for repealing the policy, including the first Marine Corps general to do so.
“It was a weak policy to start with and as we state in this study, it has led to a lot of problems and issues that don’t get publicity,” said retired Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Hugh Aitken.
POWELL’S RELUCTANCE TO speak out is all the more disappointing because the military helped lead the effort for desegregation in this country. Some of his arguments against allowing open service by gays were used to justify racial segregation in the 1940s and ’50s.
“I think sexuality and sexual preference in the confines of barracks life is a different issue [than race],” Powell said. “We have to go at it slowly.”
But it has been 15 long years and the time for prudence has passed. Powell, whose legacy was destroyed after lying to the United Nations about Saddam Hussein’s mythical weapons of mass destruction, only looks more like a symbol of a bygone, less enlightened era after his most recent comments on the gay ban.
Back in 1993, Powell was a respected general with a sterling reputation. Today, he is out of touch with a world that has changed and passed him by. He might find some partial redemption by speaking out forcefully for a repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
Our allies allow open service by gays. Some of the most senior former military leaders support a repeal. And now even the architects of the policy are having second thoughts. It is long past time that the nation moved past this issue and repealed the ban.
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