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It is almost certain, I hear, that our president is about to abolish the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy (DADT, as it is acronymed) regarding homosexuals within the ranks.
I’ve never been in the military, so I respectfully defer to my veteran friends on this. I understand that the military is not just any workplace, but creates living and working conditions far more intimate than most private sector jobs.
But before we nail ourselves to the wall defending DADT, remember that it wasn’t carried down by Moses from Mt. Sinai – it was put in place by Bill Clinton, in 1993. It was a compromise by a savvy politician to keep from alienating voters while sweeping a controversy forward so that someone else had to deal with it. You remember Bill, don’t you? George W. never addressed it either, so now it’s on Obama’s plate – a prime example of what’s wrong with the way the federal government works (see Health Care, Social Security, banking regulation, etc.). The fact that Obama is willing to take it on shows political courage, but politically it will likely do him more harm than good.
No matter what he does, someone is not going to like it. DADT has resulted in the discharge of an estimated 13,000 servicemen and women since 1993. The new policy would allow gay men and women to “openly” serve in the armed forces. I don’t know exactly what “serve openly” means, but I keep getting a mental picture of MASH’s Corporal Klinger marching, rifle on shoulder, in a dress and high heels. I hope it won’t come to that. I hope it means that recruits will be asked, they’ll tell... and then everyone will just move on. Maybe in the armed services, they really do need to know. But the basis for evaluating someone’s service ought to be how they do their job. Sex shouldn’t enter into it. Acknowledge it, if that makes you feel better, then stuff it in your foot locker. You’ve got a job to do. In the private sector, there are lots of things I can’t ask a prospective employee. But it has never occurred to me to lean across the desk and ask, “By the way, are you gay?” If I have ever had a gay employee, I didn’t know it because it didn’t affect their work. As in the military or any other job, it’s not about how you are, it’s about what you do. It’s my understanding that sex – having it, being it, talking about it, loving it, hating it – is absolutely not in the job description in the military, any more than in my newspaper office. If the military believes gay people are more likely to crack under pressure, they already have a system for weeding them out. It’s called boot camp, and its effectiveness is legendary. If they make it through that, it’s assumed that they have the right stuff. A few years ago a columnist for an area newspaper wrote about a colleague who had left. In passing, he mentioned that the guy was a faithful Christian. I had read this guy’s stories for years and never knew that. Meanwhile, in another department, the same paper had a writer who was gay and never wrote a story that did not reference that fact. I wondered, if the sports writer had injected his faith into his work the way that guy injected his homosexuality, would he have kept his job? Probably not – but it’s likely they were afraid to fire the gay guy because of the potential for a discrimination lawsuit. Based on his job performance, I’d have let him go. I hope that’s where the military can get to with this issue. Let it be neither a deep, dark secret nor a badge of honor. It’s a very important job. Let nothing interfere with that. Bob Buckel is publisher of the Azle News. |
