The Lying Has Got To Stop

Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT) was a mistake. It is a failed policy. It must be changed. Now.

Let's take a look under the hood and see why this junker needs to be hauled away to the scrap yard.

Let's start with the lies.

Military service is supposed to be about honor and duty. What part of honor and duty excludes integrity? DADT promotes lying.

If you are one of the estimated 66,000 gay and lesbian members of our military (active duty and reserves), you must live a lie every day, and must check your integrity at the door of the recruitment office, and then continue your lies throughout your service.

What national security purpose does this serve or promote? Of course, there are no national security purposes served by DADT, and in fact, there are reported incidents where a soldier's sexual orientation was used as blackmail to compromise national security.

Those who disagree with my premise that DADT must be repealed often cite the "troop morale" excuse or the mythical "advances in the foxhole" fears as crutches for their homophobia.

Let's look at the real threats posed by keeping this policy in effect.

Denial. No, it's not a river in Egypt, it's the cornerstone of those who want to keep DADT in effect.

To say that this policy must be retained denies existence of the following facts:

1. Our coalition partners fighting with the U.S. in Afghanistan and Iraq allow gays and lesbians to serve openly in their military. Great Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Israel and Spain are just some of the 25 Countries that allow gays to openly serve. So, as a country, our troops are willing to fight along side gay soldiers as coalition forces, but won't do so with those who have sworn their allegiance to defend the United States? How does that make sense?

2. We have already spent nearly $500 Million Dollars to discharge gay and lesbian soldiers and to train their replacements. We simply wasted this money. The military spends between $22,000 and $43,000 per person to replace those soldiers discharged under DADT. How does that make sense (or should I say "cents")?

3. Government Contractors whom we are paying at much higher cost to perform support services for the military, are hiring DADT discharged soldiers and employing them to perform the same services that they were performing while serving in the military--now, only at a much higher cost to the taxpayers. So, let me see if I understand--- the taxpayers paid to train them, then paid to discharge them, then paid to train their replacements and then paid a contractor to put the discharged soldier back in the theatre at a much higher cost.) This only makes sense to the Contractors.

4. We are not meeting our military recruitment goals annually, and yet we are eliminating qualified candidates from applying for service. Lifting the ban would allow many of the more than 12,000 trained soldiers who have already been discharged to re-enlist. It has been estimated that more than 36,000 applicants are ready to apply for enlistment as soon as the policy is repealed. So, rather than take more qualified applicants, the enlistment standards have been lowered, and we are taking felons now. Does this make sense?

5. We are less safe as a result of the discharge of mission-critical intelligence specialists and Arab linguists who have been discharged under DADT, especially during a time of war. Does this make sense?

6. The unnecessary discharge of trained capable soldiers under DADT has contributed to the necessity of implementing Stop Loss (which prevents soldiers and Marines from exiting the military at the end of their term of service) and has increased the number of multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan where some are on their 4th, 5th, 6th or 7th deployments. Does this make sense?

7. No one being fired upon in combat is thinking about sex, notwithstanding the frequent use of the "F" Word in a hailstorm of bullets. Gay and lesbian soldiers would be subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Feared unwanted sexual advances would be punishable under current military law, just the same as the hundreds of heterosexual harassment and assault cases are currently handled in military tribunals.

8. Gays and lesbians aren't trying to recruit straight people to be their partners. Period.

We don't need any more delays. We don't need any slanted survey questions to be analyzed by the Pentagon to know that this is a failed policy which needs to be changed.

Come on Congress, get your spines out of the closet, so to speak, and repeal DADT. NOW.

We can't afford any more of this foolishness.