Part 3

“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”: Support for Repeal from Conservatives

Lawrence J. Korb, Ph.D., Sean Duggan, and Laura Conley

In her response to our article on repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT), Elaine Donnelly is right about one thing: Social policies should not be imposed on the military if they undermine readiness. But she ignores the fact that every study done by or for the Pentagon going back to the 1957 Crittenden report, which was done for the secretary of the navy, shows that allowing openly gay people to serve does not undermine military readiness. In fact, those studies prove the opposite. However, Donnelly is dead wrong about a whole host of other issues.

If These Guys Are Liberals …

Donnelly accuses us and “like-minded liberals” of failing to make the case for repealing DADT, a decision that she claims would “impos[e] the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) agenda on our military.” I guess she never read “Mr. Conservative” Senator Barry Goldwater’s 1993 statement that “you don’t need to be ‘straight’ to fight and die for your country. You just need to shoot straight.”

I guess she also missed the recent op-ed in The Washington Post by David Rivkin, Jr., and Lee Casey, two conservative lawyers who worked in the Justice Department under Presidents George H. W. Bush and Reagan. They argued forcefully (and correctly) that, in light of Admiral Michael Mullen’s February testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee on the benefits to this military and the country of allowing openly gay people to serve, the 1993 congressional law that bans them from serving openly is unconstitutional because there is no rational basis for excluding openly gay people from the military.

Speaking of Admiral Mullen, currently the nation’s highest ranking officer, Donnelly also seems to have missed his February testimony that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would be the right thing to do. Nor does she point out that two of Mullen’s predecessors as chairman, Generals John Shalikashvili and Colin Powell, have changed their minds since originally supporting DADT. That makes three of the last six chairmen supporting us “like-minded liberals.”

Nor is there any mention of the like-minded liberal Dick Cheney, who also supports repealing DADT and who, as secretary of defense during the Persian Gulf War, suspended enforcement of the ban on gays for the duration of the war. There were no problems or angry departures as a result of Cheney’s actions. And oh, by the way, we won that war, and since 2001—when we have been at war again—the number of people discharged each year under DADT has been cut in half.

Holes in Donnelly’s Arguments

Donnelly relies on a group of retired generals and admirals, the vast majority of whom have not served in this century and none of whom attained the military’s highest rank, that is, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Some of the officers she relies on to support her cause are deceased, and one signature was provided by the widow of a deceased service member who had lost the ability to communicate six years before his death.

Donnelly also downplays the impact of forcing people to leave the service since the passage of the 1993 law. She contends that the 14,000 who have been forced out represent less than 1 percent of personnel losses that occur for other “legitimate” reasons. But she conveniently ignores the fact that, as the Williams Institute at UCLA has documented, another 4,000 qualified and experienced gay men and women who have not been outed choose not to reenlist each year. Or the fact that tens of thousands of otherwise qualified men and women will not enlist in the first place because of this discriminatory policy. Finally, what about the more than 60,000 gays currently in the service who would not be there if the secretary of defense were to follow Donnelly’s advice and ask people about their sexual orientation before they enlist?

These figures add up to more than 100,000 qualified men and women who will not join, leave because of fear of being caught, or get kicked out because of DADT. To replace them, the army and Marines had to give more than 80,000 moral waivers between 2003 and 2007 to fight George W. Bush’s mindless, needless, senseless war in Iraq. These waivers allowed some convicted criminals—including some who committed felonies—to serve in the U.S. armed forces. And yet Donnelly insists that disallowing gays enhances military readiness.

Not a Drastic Change

We could go on and on, but the issue of allowing gays to serve openly in the military was never a liberal or conservative issue. It is an issue of military readiness and American values. Not surprisingly then, three-quarters of the American people—including 64 percent of Republicans—now support dropping the ban. Nor is it being forced on the military. In addition to Mullen, 73 percent of recently returned veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan said they are personally comfortable in the presence of gays and lesbians.

Donnelly also dismisses the argument that we should learn from the experiences of our closest allies who allow openly gay members to serve without undermining cohesion or readiness. According to her, our military is the role model for our allies, not the other way around. Really? When General David Petraeus was put in charge of the military effort in Iraq in 2007, he recruited as his counterinsurgency advisor David Kilcullen, an Australian specialist in guerilla war, and placed General Graeme Lamb, a British general, in charge of the reconciliation effort in Iraq because of his experience in Northern Ireland.

Donnelly even argues that the militaries of Britain, Canada, and Israel, which have dropped the ban on gays, have not “adopted the extreme, unworkable agenda that LGBT activists are trying to impose on our military.” Not so. The activists are saying the opposite. As we point out in our recent study, “Implementing the Repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in the U.S. Armed Forces,” the experiences of the British, Canadian, and Israeli militaries show that once the law is repealed, there are only a number of fairly limited and manageable administrative, bureaucratic, and legal changes that must be made. Moreover, because these countries are not burdened with the Defense of Marriage Act, they can and do provide the same benefits to same sex couples that married couples receive and do not provide separate facilities for gay troops.

The Beginning of the End

As a result of the testimony of Admiral Mullen, which was supported by another like-minded liberal, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates (who was appointed to high posts by the last three Republican presidents), the debate has shifted. It is now no longer a question of whether to repeal DADT but how and when. Gates has not only failed to comply with Donnelly’s interpretation of the 1993 law—which would have required him not to allow gays into the military even if they do not tell—but has gone in the opposite direction. On March 25, Gates raised the bar for discharging gays. Now each dismissal must be approved by a flag or general officer and cannot rely on hearsay evidence or testimony by an unreliable third party. Moreover, Gates has instructed a working group to outline the rules and regulations that must be changed to effectively and seamlessly implement the repeal of DADT.

The end of this outdated, discriminatory policy is within sight. With the support of the American people, the White House, our military leaders, and a bevy of “like-minded liberals” across the country, our Armed Forces can make the same seamless transition that our closest allies have already made. As service members in the United Kingdom, Israel, and Canada have found, military readiness and unit cohesion do not suffer when gay and lesbian service members are no longer forced to live a lie.
NEXT: Elaine Donnelly responds to Lawrence Korb.