Repeal of DADT

During my career in the military the policy on allowing gays to serve has run nearly its full course. I retired before the most recent changes but I do the remember a time when there was no question that being even perceived as being gay was cause for discharge. It was necessarily full policy, but generally speaking if you were gay regardless of homosexual activity you were asked to leave. Later, during the Clinton administration, the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy was passed into law. Basically, you could serve as a gay member, you just couldn’t participate in homosexual activities or declare your homosexuality. And the military operated under those laws until now. While the Clinton policy didn’t completely satisfy the LGBT community, it did allow for gays to serve their country as long as they kept their orientation to themselves. You couldn’t be kicked out of the military just for the perception of being gay as had been the case prior to DADT.

Now that the House and the Senate has repealed the DADT policy and will allow gays to serve openly I am going to look at this from two different angles. First is how will the policy impact the run of the military service member and how different viewpoints will be handled. Secondly, I will be looking at this from a little darker angle.

For the past 17 years, gays have been allowed to serve their country with honor and distinction as long as they kept their orientation to themselves or didn’t become involved with homosexual activity. For the most part, I think the policy worked. It allowed gays to serve and it allowed for those who oppose homosexual activity based on their personal beliefs to remain blissfully unaware. I happen to firmly believe that most members of the military didn’t really mind serving alongside gay individuals. Even those morally opposed know that most of LGBT orientation don’t make a choice to be gay. Even those who opposed the gay lifestyle based on a moral principle didn’t feel it was right to systematically or institutionally discriminate against gays. In fact, I think most of us knew several members who were gay. While serving in Alaska I personally knew a couple of lesbian members whom I called my friends. As far back as my first duty assignment back in the early ‘80s the guy I shared a bathroom with was gay Nobody really got their knickers in knot over them serving. As long as they kept their orientation “close-hold” and were not in your face about it and didn’t want special treatment there were minimal problems.

Now that the DADT policy has been rescinded there is cause for concern about gays receiving special treatment and that could very well cause problems, especially between those opposed based on the morals and the gay member. In the previous paragraph I wrote against systematical or institutional discrimination. But I also vehemently oppose systematic or institution treatment to raise them above the others which this policy will most assuredly do. During the DADT era, we received annual briefings on the treatment of gays. As moved higher in rank, the briefings became more detailed and much heavier handed. While not allowed to serve openly, gays were treated with kid-gloves. There had to be a preponderance of evidence against them to be kicked out. I read somewhere in recent days that 80,000 gays were kicked out during the DADT era. They didn’t mention that to be kicked out for being gay was to be either caught “in the act” or to self identify. So if you didn’t get caught in bed with your same sex partner or didn’t go to the Commander and say “hey, I’m gay”, then there were minimal problems and no cause for termination of service within the military. Even if you were caught, heaven and earth had to be moved to kick the gay member booted. Investigations were initiated, statements taken, and interviews were conducted to determine to validity of any charges. If a military member reported they had seen John walking into the local gay hang out, the reporting member could actually get into trouble. So even though gays were not allowed to serve openly, the system did work in their favor unless they self identified or activity was verified through a painstaking investigation. The last 10 years of my career as a superintendent or additional duty First Sergeant I was in a position to know when “things were happening” when involving people. I can only recall one incident where we kicked out an individual for being gay and he self ID’d.

Once the new policy is put into place by the Pentagon, where do we go from here? How is the military going to handle the influx of personnel serving openly? Are they going to receive special treatment? The military brass will tell you there will be no special treatment for gays, but I can’t see how special treatment is not going to happen. The military population at-large will receive briefing after briefing on how to treat the gay military population. That right there is special treatment. This could lead to rifts developing. For most of person military career they have had it drummed into them that no one is to be discriminated against based on race gender or religious affiliation. But now briefings will be presented on how to interact with gay service members. I don’t recall ever seeing a brief that told women or any other minority group how to interact with white Christian service members.

 Will they have their own dorms? Unless you have served in the military you really have no idea what it is like to live, work, and sleep with the same people 24/7. For most services, the barracks are set up with unit integrity in mind. In other words, if you belong the Alpha Platoon, Charlie Company, you will quite likely bunk with the same people you see while on-duty. Some have said dorm life is similar to dorm life in college, but I disagree. For one thing, if you really don’t get along with your college roommate, it is fairly simple to get moved to another room. Not so in the military. Generally rooms are hard to come by and space is very limited and moving doesn’t happen easily. According to the study conducted by the Service Chiefs, a Commander will have the ability to move someone to maintain good order and discipline. But if there is no place to put them, this option is not worth the paper it is written on. And if special accommodations are made for gay members will special considerations be given to those who oppose based on moral grounds? If the flaming left wing has their way, then the answer is NO. Will the gay service member be briefed that there are those who oppose their lifestyle? Most likely not. Will the gay service member asked (told?) to be understanding that there will be many who oppose the gay lifestyle. Probably not. Based on past experience, this will mostly likely be a one way street. Those who oppose will be forced to adjust, no matter what they believe, even if it is based on God’s demands. There is a definite undercurrent out there from the more liberal portion of society that feels it’s just too dang bad that you oppose the lifestyle, get over it. No concessions to be made in the other direction.

I agree this is not the end of the republic as we know it, at least not completely. But it is a massive change for the people who serve our country. The implementation needs to be handled correctly or there will be far-reaching issues. The gay community is a very small portion of our nation’s population and the percentage of gay population willing to serve is probably quite small. While not trying to stereotype, gays tend to be very liberal (there are exceptions to every stereotype) and liberals do not join the military in large numbers. For the very vast majority of mostly conservative service members to be willing to accept this very significant change, there is has to be some give by the gay rights faction. The gay rights community needs to understand there will be some bumps in the road and they cannot have the attitude that it is their way or the highway. There are many very honorable men and women currently serving who oppose this change. BUT, they are service members first and will salute smartly and carry on the best that they can do implementing the changes because it is what they were ordered to do and those orders are lawful.

The implementation must be done with a sharp eye open for unintended consequences and unseen trends. If heed is not paid to conventional wisdom, there will issues on the other end of this new program. It would not surprise me to see a downward trend in enlistments, re-enlistments, and commissions after this takes effect. There will be some who will not serve or continue to serve with gay members because it goes against their moral fiber. For those who oppose and choose to remain, honest efforts to accommodate their beliefs will also have to be made. To make this work, it has to be a two way street.

Strong leaders are going to be needed to tell the military community this is the policy and law of the land and it will be implemented AND they are going to have to let the gay community know there will be rough spots and there will be times when the outcome won’t always fall in their favor.

The darker angle will be addressed very soon so come back.