Military men and women should be able to kiss and tell fearlessly
The Daily Iowan E-Board
Issue date: 1/30/09 Section: Opinion
The military has dismissed several thousand enlisted troops since 1993, the year a very special policy went into effect. Since then, almost 12,500 willing and able men and women have fallen beneath that strangest of bureaucratic axes, the various edicts, pseudo-reports and mores collected under what's known as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
The theory goes that openly, or even covertly gay, lesbian or bisexual people will degrade unit cohesion, undermine the efficacy of the chain of command and generally screw around with discipline and order.
The idea is pretty old, stretching back, in our country, to the Revolutionary War, in which, with god and legend George Washington's approval, "sodomy" earned the infamous dishonorable discharge, but really firmed up with the Department of Defense's 1981 directive, stating, among the above, that "The presence of such members adversely affects the ability of the armed forces … to facilitate assignment and worldwide deployment of service members who frequently must live and work in close conditions affording minimal privacy; to recruit and retain members of the armed forces; to maintain the public acceptability of military service; and to prevent breaches of security." These last four in the list are some of the more laughable elements, hinging on exploded paranoia and fear for reputation, but all of it points to far more troubling degrees of civil rights wronged.
In 1957, another important document came out (so to speak), applying more directly to the Navy but sending aftershocks out through the rest of the military complex: the Crittenden Report. This study, conducted after a career Navy doctor was ousted for his not-too-DL homosexuality, states in its concluding lines that there is "no sound basis for the belief that homosexuals pose a security risk."
A similar report in 1992 was going to buttress a campaign platform for Bill Clinton, who did support a lift of the '81 ban on alternative sexualities, but an outcry over such a horrifying prospect as fags with guns quickly hushed the whole thing down.
The theory goes that openly, or even covertly gay, lesbian or bisexual people will degrade unit cohesion, undermine the efficacy of the chain of command and generally screw around with discipline and order.
The idea is pretty old, stretching back, in our country, to the Revolutionary War, in which, with god and legend George Washington's approval, "sodomy" earned the infamous dishonorable discharge, but really firmed up with the Department of Defense's 1981 directive, stating, among the above, that "The presence of such members adversely affects the ability of the armed forces … to facilitate assignment and worldwide deployment of service members who frequently must live and work in close conditions affording minimal privacy; to recruit and retain members of the armed forces; to maintain the public acceptability of military service; and to prevent breaches of security." These last four in the list are some of the more laughable elements, hinging on exploded paranoia and fear for reputation, but all of it points to far more troubling degrees of civil rights wronged.
In 1957, another important document came out (so to speak), applying more directly to the Navy but sending aftershocks out through the rest of the military complex: the Crittenden Report. This study, conducted after a career Navy doctor was ousted for his not-too-DL homosexuality, states in its concluding lines that there is "no sound basis for the belief that homosexuals pose a security risk."
A similar report in 1992 was going to buttress a campaign platform for Bill Clinton, who did support a lift of the '81 ban on alternative sexualities, but an outcry over such a horrifying prospect as fags with guns quickly hushed the whole thing down.
Be the first to comment on this story