Dan Choi is a well-decorated combat veteran who was dismissed from the military because was gay. His message at the National Equality March rally was simple and compelling. Choi made it clear that he is done asking and he is now telling. Don’t ask, don’t tell must be repealed immediately.
How and why should we repeal Don’t ask, Don’t tell? Everything you need to know is here, in this presentation by Lawrence J. Korb, Sean Duggan, and Laura Conley of the Center for American Progress. Here’s the pdf. Here are some of the facts worth considering:
More than 32,500 gay and lesbian service men and women have been discharged from military service since 1980.
This policy may have cost the U.S. government up to $1.3 billion since 1980.
“No reputable or peer-reviewed study has ever shown that allowing service by openly gay personnel will compromise military effectiveness.”17
Twenty-four countries allow gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the military. None of these have reported “any determent to cohesion, readiness, recruiting, morale, retention or any other measure of effectiveness or quality,” according to the Palm Center, and “in the more
than three decades since an overseas force first allowed gay men and lesbians to serve openly, no study has ever documented any detriment to cohesion, readiness, recruiting, morale, retention or any other measure of effectiveness or quality in foreign armed services.”
Even the British, whose military structure and deployment patterns are most similar to ours—and who fiercely resisted allowing gays to serve in the military—were forced to do so by the European Court
What is step ONE for ending the deplorable status quo? “Issue an Executive Order banning further dismissals on the basis of DADT and send a legislative proposal on DADT repeal to Congress.”
We’re waiting, Mr. Obama.
