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Partly Cloudy Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies
The problem with the “don’t ask, don’t tell” rules on gays in the military is that the moral underpinnings of the policy are rotten. In place since the Clinton years, the rules say that if you keep quiet about being gay, you can serve. If your sexual orientation becomes known, you’re not just outed, you’re out.
And so, the individual is required to pretend, to keep hidden a part of himself or herself that is inseparable from identity. Under present guidelines, any fit man or woman can join the military, serve, fight and die for this country as long as he doesn’t reveal that he is homosexual.
Because of this hypocritical policy, many well-qualified soldiers who refused to hide their homosexuality have been discharged from the service. Since the inception of “don’t ask, don’t tell” 17 years ago, some 10,000 soldiers have been kicked out of the service for being gay.
One of them is Dan Choi, West Point graduate, an officer in the Army National Guard, a man who served in Iraq and speaks fluent Arabic. Choi apparently decided to test the policy; he went on “The Rachel Maddow Show” and came out as a gay man. He said he was tired of living a lie. A military board issued his discharge orders; an appeal followed and is pending.
In a story posted on huffingtonpost.com, Aaron Belkin wrote, “I spent a day with Dan Choi last month, and he is not someone we want to fire from the military. He loves the armed forces. He served bravely under tough combat conditions in Iraq.
His Arabic is excellent and he used his language skills to defuse many tough situations to save lives ... All of his unit mates know he is gay and they have been supportive of him.”
Finally, last week, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Adm. Mike Mullen, testified that the time has come to repeal “don’t ask.” “No matter how I look at the issue,” Mullen said, “I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens. ... For me it comes down to integrity —theirs as individuals and ours as in institution.”
