WHY is the Obama administration defending the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays in the military? This doesn’t just break his past promises — it conflicts with his oath to keep the nation safe.
Gay-rights activists had been grumbling for months over the president’s apparent lack of interest in their agenda. Then, on Monday, the public learned that Solicitor General Elena Kagan had filed a brief with the Supreme Court arguing in favor of “don’t ask, don’t tell” — writing that it is “rationally related to the government’s legitimate interest in military discipline and cohesion.”
That’s nonsense, at least according to what Obama himself said during the campaign.
In a Human Rights Campaign questionnaire, he lambasted the Democratic leadership of 1993 for bowing to “fear and prejudice” and called “don’t ask, don’t tell” a policy that is “antithetical to the values of honor and integrity that our military holds most dear.” He further pledged to “make nondiscrimination the official policy of the US military.”
Last year, of course, Obama called himself a “fierce advocate” of gay equality. But that was then. Last month, Richard Socarides (a second-term adviser to President Bill Clinton on gay rights) penned a Washington Post op-ed titled “Where’s our ‘fierce advocate’?” This week, Socarides told me: “Time is running out. If he doesn’t act soon, people will remember him as someone who failed to exercise the leadership that had been entrusted to him.”
Mitchell Gold, a leading gay activist, says, “It wasn’t that long ago that our president [or his daughters] would not have been allowed to serve in the military because of [their] race [or gender]. I respect our president’s desire to bring consensus on contentious issues. But there are some issues where compromise is not an option.”
Obama defenders argue that his plate is too full, that he can’t do anything without getting Congress on board.
But it’s hard to imagine Obama having more political capital than he has now. Furthermore, the culture has shifted so radically since 1993 that his inaction — and any potential objection by Congress — lag public sentiment on the issue.
A new Gallup poll finds that 69 percent of Americans support openly gay people serving in the military, including most conservatives (58 percent) and weekly churchgoers (60 percent). A 2006 Zogby poll found that a majority of service members who knew a gay member in their unit said it had no negative impact on the unit or on their own morale.
In 2007, two past defenders of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” former GOP Sen. Alan Simpson and then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff John M. Shalikashvili, concluded that the so-called evidence in support of the ban was weak and that it was time to join the 24 foreign nations (including Israel, Britain and Canada) that allow gays to serve openly.
In his book, “Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America,” Nathaniel Frank points out that in those 24 countries, “None of the [predicted] crises in recruitment, retention, resignations, morale, cohesion, readiness or ‘operational effectiveness’ came to pass.”
Most important of all, the president can and should order the Defense Department to hold off on any more firings for mere sexual preference — because it makes America less safe.
Why are we refusing the service of people like Lt. Daniel Choi? This West Point grad was dismissed from the Army National Guard last month for violating the backward policy.
Yet Choi is an Arabic linguist — a specialty in enormously short supply — who deployed to Iraq and was willing to deploy again.
Answering that Human Rights Campaign questionnaire, Obama said, “Fourteen years ago, the Democratic Party faced a test of leadership, and our party failed that test. We had an opportunity to be leaders on the world stage in eliminating discrimination against gay and lesbian service members.”
Let’s not fail the test again.
kirstenpowers@aol.com