http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/op_ed/view.bg?articleid=1243037&srvc=rss
No honor in ‘don’t ask’
Ban on gay soldiers is pointless
West Point Academy’s honor code is wonderfully succinct: “A cadet will not lie, cheat, steal or tolerate those who do.”
And yet, our government has a policy that forces some men and women in our military to live a lie. The “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy gives gays and lesbians a horrific choice: Keep your sexual orientation hidden or be discharged from the military, even dishonorably.
It’s wrong, and I think it’s long overdue to end it.
I’ve never understood why a government would say no to citizens who volunteer to risk life and limb to do their patriotic duty.
But I understand how we ended up with “don’t ask, don’t tell” in 1993. It was a political compromise at a very different time. The military by and large opposed lifting the ban. So did the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Colin Powell.
The operative phrase of the moment was: “Listen to the military.” Today, some politicians still say they’re waiting for the military to speak out against the ban.
Well, wait no more.
Chief of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen testified before Congress that it is time to scrap the policy. Powell has changed his mind and says it has outlived its usefulness. And last week, Defense Secretary Robert Gates approved new rules that will make it harder to discharge gays from the military.
I am encouraged by those new guidelines that put decisions in the hands of higher-ranking officers and impose tougher requirements for evidence against gays. But I know the only real way to erase any ambiguity and end the injustice of it is for Congress - which created the policy - to repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell” once and for all.
What are we afraid of? At least 25 other countries allow openly gay men and women to serve in their military forces, including some of our closest allies with whom we regularly conduct joint exercises: Great Britain, Germany and Israel. Our allies’ experience with gays in the military is virtually trouble-free.
Compare that to our experience. Since 1993, more than 13,000 men and women have been forced out of the military, men and women whose skills and love of country are needed by a nation at war. One of them is Laurie Harris, a 34-year-old doctor in Newburyport. She graduated from Harvard, earned her medical degree from Boston University through a scholarship program that paid for school in exchange for service in the Air Force. During her final year of medical school, she spent three months on duty at Andrews Air Force Base. She acknowledged to her commanding officer that she was a lesbian. She got an honorable discharge and a bill for her scholarship, which she is repaying.
Harris says simply, “We are fighting for freedom, but we didn’t have the freedom to even be who we are. I just couldn’t live a lie anymore.”
Who could disagree? Certainly not Admiral Mullen, who testified that we force “young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens.”
That’s not right, it’s not smart and it’s not necessary.
We should allow gays and lesbians to take their rightful place on our lines, on our ships and in our aircraft not just because it will make us a more just and fair society, but because we will be a safer and stronger one, protected by a military that will be second to none. Now, and forever.
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