On DADT, Democrats Should Ignore D.C.’s Chicken Littles

When it comes to gay rights, much has changed in the 17 years since President Clinton first attempted to allow gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military.  But when some political analysts speak about gays in the military, a certain U2 song comes to mind.  For these supposed prophets, it's still 1993, and finally repealing the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) policy, as President Obama has vowed to do, could be disastrous for Democrats come November. Fortunately, these analyses are more Chicken Little than Cassandra.

In a recent feature, the Washington Post editorial page asked various pollsters, pundits, and others for their opinions on repealing DADT.  While most of the responses favored an end to the policy, two stood out for their predictions of dire electoral consequences for Democrats.

The first of these answers, unsurprisingly enough, came from a conservative source: Ed Rogers, a former staffer to Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.  Yet his warning seems fairly half-hearted; he acknowledges at the beginning of his response that "it is inevitable that gays will openly serve in the U.S. Armed Forces."  Rogers goes on to warn Republicans that supporting repeal may not play well in primaries, as "[m]uch of the Republican coalition will never support gays in the military."  That may be true, though it's worth pointing out that a recent Fox News poll found Republicans evenly divided, 46-44, on the subject, rather than being overwhelmingly opposed.  After alluding to the standard (and baseless) trope that gays could pose a danger to military cohesion, Rogers suggests that Republicans should listen to former military leaders on the issue.  I'm guessing he doesn't mean Colin Powell.

Rogers' advice to Democrats is even feebler.  While he acknowledges that acceptance of gay rights is increasing rapidly, particularly among younger Americans, he concludes that "the general population is not there yet."  What's the basis for that assertion, you might ask?  Rogers never bothers to provide one.

He's not the only would-be oracle who refuses to provide any empirical evidence that repealing DADT poses a political risk. That dubious honor also goes to Democratic pollster Doug Schoen, who warns of "a dramatic and deleterious impact on Democratic fortunes in November."  This forecast apparently has nothing to do with any polls Schoen has conducted on the issue; instead, he cites the recent successes of same-sex marriage opponents in California, Maine, New York, and New Jersey, which "demonstrate quite clearly that mass opinion has not changed as dramatically as elite opinion apparently has on the role of gays in our society."

This is absurd for several reasons. Most obviously, Schoen, like Rogers, falsely alleges that public opinion isn't behind DADT repeal. In fact, the aforementioned Fox poll found 61 percent of voters in support of repealing the ban. A May 2009 Gallup poll found an even higher 69 percent in support. But what's more disturbing is that in Schoen's world, there are no individual, distinct LGBT issues. DADT, civil unions, equal immigration policies -- they're all one issue, and that issue is apparently marriage, which represents the entirety of public opinion "on the role of gays in our society."

It says quite a bit that Schoen instinctively rushes to conflate DADT with marriage, which consistently polls significantly worse.  While I'd imagine that Schoen is personally supportive of gay rights, he appears to have internalized years of right-wing rhetoric on the subject. He openly expresses his "fear" of the Tea Party movement, social conservatives, and the religious right, at a time when only three percent of Americans rank social issues at the top of their list of priorities.  Schoen seemingly experiences sheer terror at the thought of dealing with gay issues, and so he rushes to put every item on the LGBT agenda under the umbrella of the one that's least popular.

It's time to stop living in fear. If Democrats do suffer in November, it'll have far more to do with the unemployment rate and relentless GOP obstructionism than with anything to do with gay rights. And the time for action is now: Strong majorities of the public support repealing DADT, military leaders are backing the President and the votes in Congress are there to pull it off. In short, it's not 1993, and the sky isn't falling.

But if Democrats, and President Obama in particular, would rather show the base that they're weak, easily terrified by conservative homophobes, and unable to fulfill their promises, I'd advise them to heed the sage words of Doug Schoen and Ed Rogers.

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