Don't Ask- Don't Tell - A Failed Policy

The "don't ask,don't tell" policy used by the United States government reminds me of the racial segregation policy practiced by the U.S. Military prior to 1948. U.S. military policy prevented black and white soldiers from serving together. In 1948 President Harry Truman abolished racial segregation in the armed services by executive order. The abolition of segregation was a leap forward in the conduct of American military strategy.

According to Morris J. MacGregor, Jr., the "...Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps were called upon to reexamine their traditional practices of segregation. While there were differences in the ways that the services moved toward integration, all were subject to the same demands, fears, and prejudices and had the same need to use their resources in a more rational and economical way. All of them reached the same conclusion: traditional attitudes toward minorities must give way to democratic concepts of civil rights." (www.army.mil/cmh/books/integration/IAF-fm.htm - 38k) Research gathered at UCLA claims that an estimated 65,000 lesbian and gay troops now serve in the armed forces. A 2005 study by the Government Accountability Office showed that about 10,000 service personnel have been discharged since the policy took effect, including 54 Arabic specialists. (Reexamining "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" - TIME Mar 13, 2007) Dismissing gays and lesbians from the military when the Pentagon is trying to hold on to every soldier, sailor, airman and Marine doesn't seem to many to be rational and does not make economic sense. Morris J. MacGregor is right. "Traditional attitudes toward minorities must give way to democratic concepts of civil rights."

According to a 1993 Government Accountability Office study of allied nations, "the presence of homosexuals in the military is not an issue and has not created problems in the functioning of military units." Nathaniel Frank, author of "Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America" reports on "a 1994 assessment by the U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences finding that predicted negative consequences of ending gay exclusion in the Canadian Forces never materialized; the 2000 assessment of the British Ministry of Defense, calling its new policy of equal treatment "a solid achievement" with "no discernible impact" on recruitment or other critical variables; and four academic studies conducted by the Palm Center,... , finding that lifting bans in Britain, Israel, Canada and Australia had no negative impact on military readiness, including on recruitment and retention."

At a time when the military is allowing convicted felons, (According to the Palm Center, the number of convicted felons who enlisted in the U.S. military almost doubled in the past three years, rising from 824 felons in fiscal year 2004 to 1,605 in fiscal year 2006), it is time for Congress to overturn “don’t ask, don’t tell” and bring equality to the military for gays and lesbians.