Ask. Tell.

This is Sheryl. In 1993, a law was put in place prohibiting gays from openly serving in the military. Since the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law was put into effect, over 13,500 service members have been dismissed from the military because of their sexuality.  The issue of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy has been in the news a few times recently due to an ongoing debate regarding lifting the ban on gays openly serving in the United States Armed Forces.  It’s been so up and down with the government that I can’t even keep track of the progress of the issue personally, but I saw an article with the latest updates about the matter on Yahoo News today and the issue is definitely of interest to me.  I am a firm believer that gay people should have the exact same rights as everyone else, including the opportunity to serve in the armed forces without having to hide their sexuality. 

President Obama made a statement in which he said, “It is time to close this chapter in our history.  It is time to recognize that sacrifice, valor and integrity are no more defined by sexual orientation than they are by race or gender, religion or creed.”  I personally could not agree with this statement more.

Obviously not everyone agrees with the ban of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and I wanted to get the opinion of someone who has served time in the military.  I have a friend who is in the military, so I asked him if lifting the ban would really be problematic or not, and I was kind of surprised by the conversation that followed.  He does not have anything against gays, but he does have a strong opinion on the matter.  He told me that “it would cause a mutiny.  There would literally be dead gay guys.”  When I asked him why, he told me, “We’re not queer and refuse to be known to associate with them…We have a reputation as ruthless killing machines, that fear and reputation is what we strive for and causes our enemies and allies to both fear and respect us.  If we allow queers, we’ll be seen as fairies and that fear will go away.”  He then went on to touch on the fact that there are strict rules regarding interactions with service members of the opposite sex because relationship issues can cloud peoples’ decisions, so gays shouldn’t be allowed either.  At this point my response was, “but if there are already gay guys in the military who just pretend not to be gay and they don’t ruin the fearful reputation then why does it matter? It’s not like the enemy is going to know if anyone in the unit is gay and therefore not be intimidated anymore.”  He responded to this by saying, “The enemies study us.  The gays don’t act gay so it’s ok because it’s not allowed and punishable still so we’re not condoning their actions.  The Taliban studies us to the point that they have our training manuals.  The overall opinion is that the military should consist of real men and gays can be in it as long as they stay in the closet.  It’s not fair to those who have fought and lost their lives and limbs and friends.”  So I asked him, “so just because they’re gay they’re not real men and don’t deserve to fight for or be willing to die for their country as well?”  He told me again that it comes down to the image.

I had never heard that perspective about the issue before and I was honestly shocked by it.  If anything, I would have thought of the issues within the military being homophobic issues regarding being in close quarters with gay guys for years at a time.  The article had a slightly different outlook, though.  It discusses a year-long study on the impact of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, which included a survey of troops and their families.  The study found that two-thirds of service members did not think that changing the law would have much of an effect at all.  It is also noted that 92% of troops believe they have served with a gay person, and saw no effect on the morale or effectiveness of the unit.

I know plenty of people agree with the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, but I believe that lifting the ban on openly gay people serving in the military is a very important step for gay rights.  Obviously the ban has not prevented gay people from serving in the military over the past seventeen years.  If 13,500 have already been dismissed because of their sexuality, one can only imagine how many did not get dismissed.  So they can fight for their country and the freedom and safety of their loved ones, but they can’t even truly be fighting for their own freedom because they can’t completely be who they really are while they’re enlisted?  That just isn’t right.  Gay people should be able to fight for their country if they want to, and they should be able to do so without having to hide who they are if they don’t want to.