Military Chaplains Agree: "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Hurts U.S. Security
A group of retired military chaplains are lending their voices toward a repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," writing in a publicly released Q&A that the U.S. military's policy of not welcoming openly gay and lesbian soldiers is hurting national security. The chaplains also cut straight to the core of the anti-gay argument that openly gay and lesbian soldiers would harm unit cohesion, concluding that gay troops pose no threat to military morale.
The chaplains have history on their side. Though it's not well known, President George H.W. Bush actually put a stop to military discharges based on sexual orientation during the first Gulf War in the early 1990s. The result wasn't the doomsday scenario painted by organizations like the Center for Military Readiness, that views openly gay and lesbian soldiers as a pox upon the military. Instead, there was no documented negative effect on unit morale, cohesion, good order, or discipline.
And that was twenty years ago! If our soldiers could handle a military with openly gay and lesbian soldiers in 1990, what would stop them in 2009 or 2010?
The Q&A cheat sheet provided by these military chaplains breaks apart some of the fallacies championed by anti-gay activists who want to keep the military's discriminatory policy in place. They tackle unit cohesion by pointing out that polls show three-quarters of U.S. troops would be comfortable serving with openly gay soldiers. They tackle military readiness by pointing out that almost two dozen of our allies -- many of whom have troops deployed in Afghanistan or Iraq -- have integrated military forces that allow openly gay and lesbian soldiers to serve. They even tackle the ridiculous meme that U.S. soldiers can't handle sharing a shower facility with openly gay troops by pointing out that group shower facilities are a dying breed within the U.S. military.
The chaplains add their names to a growing list of military veterans calling for a swift repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." VoteVets has been a huge part of this movement, collecting the names of veterans who support ending "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" so that they can hand those names to the White House.
Politicians continue to talk about moving a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" repeal forward, most recently with discussion that a repeal could be part of next year's military appropriations bill. That can't come soon enough for the nearly 3,000 troops each year who are booted out of the military, or choose not to enlist, because of how the military views their sexual orientation.
Michael Jones
is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.
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