Don't Ask, Don't Remind Me

Members of the Royal Navy Marching at the Manchester Pride Parade

            Last Thursday, U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips deemed that the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy is unconstitutional as it violates the 1^st and 5^th Amendment rights of gay and lesbian servicemembers. Since the act became law in 1993 under the Clinton administration, over 13,000 members of various branches of the military have been discharged. As demand for soldiers grew during the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the average number of annually discharged soldiers fell considerably, although the policy is still purported to have cost the United States 363 million dollars since its inception. Judge Phillip’s ruling comes in the heat of a long-standing debate between the opponents and proponents of DADT, a debate that has reached a head in recent months.

            Contrastingly, Great Britain celebrated the 10-year anniversary of the bill that allowed gay and lesbian soldiers to serve openly in the military last July, a move that has been reported to have increased unit cohesion and morale, rather than degrade it. Other countries that allow gays to serve openly in the military include Israel, France, Canada, Australia, and the Netherlands, which ended the ban on openly gay military members in 1974. Yes, 1974. An estimated 12,000 soldiers, 10% of The Netherlands’ military forces, are gay.

            What I don’t understand is why, even though so many other countries, and indeed, our military allies, have allowed gays to serve openly in the military for so long (relatively speaking), the United States has been so reluctant to do the same. Granted, the United States is much more socially conservative than most of the other industrialized nations in the world, but with so much evidence countering DADT’s effectiveness, and, indeed, point, its hard to believe that social prejudice is still precluding the bill’s overturn. Commodore R. W. Gates of the Royal Australian Navy stated that, following the allowance of gays to serve openly in the military in Australia in the 1990s, there was little, if any, change to the infrastructure or morale of the military: “There was no great peak...where people walked out, and there was no great dip in recruiting. It really was a non-event.” If America, too, could make the overturn of DADT a non-event, perhaps it would limit the deleterious effects that people like John McCain so fervently insist will ensue if DADT is overturned. 


Update: On another note, check out Diversity Matters' blog about coming out.