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Kevin Naff is editor of the Washington Blade and can be reached at knaff@washblade.com.
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HOME > VIEWPOINT > EDITORIAL
By: KEVIN NAFF COMMENTS
 
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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 It is long past time that the nation moved past this issue and repealed the ban.
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