Don’t Waffle, Don’t Backpedal

By Broadside Contributor Jaap Weel

When Stephen Benjamin joined the U.S. Navy, he knew what he was getting into. Every day of his life as a naval officer he would live in fear of becoming a former naval officer. Of course, everyone in the military fears a premature end to their career. Those who join the military voluntarily sign up for a risky job; they know it and they are well-rewarded for it.

But it was not foreign enemies with bullets or shells that threatened to end Stephen's military career as an Arabic translator. It was his superiors, wielding a policy known as Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

In 2007, Stephen Benjamin was dismissed after inspectors digging through a chat system had found references to the fact that he had committed that gravest of military errors—he had told.

No, he had not told a lie or an official secret. He had told someone that he was gay.

Never mind that Arabic translators are in short supply and crucial to the difficult war effort in Iraq. Never mind that military personnel in general are in short supply: so short, in fact, that recruiters have been told to relax all sorts of rules, ranging from age restrictions to criminal record checks.

The armed forces employ nearly one tenth of the entire U.S. work force. That means that one in ten jobs is inaccessible to anyone who is gay, lesbian, or bisexual.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell sounded like a sensible compromise when Bill Clinton signed off on it. No longer would the military make a big deal out of the sexual orientation of its personnel. Nobody would ask about it, nobody would talk about it, and all would be quiet.

Reality turned out different. In practice, Don't Ask Don't Tell means that “an honest statement of one's sexual orientation to anyone, anywhere, anytime is grounds for discharge,” as the Service Members' Legal Defense Network puts it. Gay service members need to make a choice: live a lie or leave the service.

As an American, I want service members to be judged based on the sacrifices they make to serve their country. Americans support a military that selects its employees by their qualifications and their commitment, especially in times of war.

With so much disapproval of current policy, there is only one way to sustain it: refer the issue to further investigations, to be carried out at a leisurely pace interrupted only by the occasional interdepartmental memo which is—you guessed it—precisely what the Obama administration has seen fit to do.

In politics, “further study” is conducted, more often than not, to keep matters in limbo than to actually study them further. While matters are being studied further, few ask questions, and no one has to give them answers.

The matter has been investigated at length, many times before. Other industrialized democracies, including Israel, have realized long ago that there are more important qualifications for military personnel than the gender of your significant other.