When he ran for President, one of the promises Candidate Obama made was that he would lift the current policy of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” in favor of allowing gays to serve openly in the US Military. While there were issues where I disagreed with Mr. Obama, this was not one of them. I have long felt that this ‘wink and a nod’ policy was idiotic and somewhat insulting to both sides of the equation.
I also feel that it is wrong to ban gays from serving simply because of their sexual orientation. Those who oppose allowing them to serve make the same tired arguments about hurting morale, disrupting discipline or harming the continuity of service and so on that were made against integration of troops in the 40s or allowing women to serve on naval ships during the 70s.
The simple fact of the matter is that it doesn’t matter what your color, gender or orientation are. If you are in combat, you don’t care who the person next to you is dating, you care if he has your back and is going to stand by you when the bullets start flying. Just as there are no atheists or white supremacists in foxholes, neither are there any homophobes.
Indeed the fact remains that the gay and lesbian troops are already there, and I suspect that in many cases some of their fellow troopers know who they are. Regardless, they are already present and as far as I can tell our Armed Services have not collapsed.
President Obama has quietly indicated that he wants to take his time to make sure the process is carried out carefully, and given the political climate I understand that. I also understand that there are some practical and logistical issues to be worked out, which is why he wants input from the military chiefs on the subject to give him a basis of support to go to Congress and ask for a change.
I also recognize that just as there are areas where it is difficult or impractical for men and women to serve together that there may be some areas where the same is true of gay and lesbian troops. This is another area where they will need to develop a practical plan so that the new policy can be carried out with efficiency.
However there are some indications that it may be a year or more before this review is even requested. That seems to me to be a bit too long to wait. Certainly there are more pressing issues that will occupy the attention of our leaders in the coming months, but at the same time this period of time could be used for the review to be conducted, making the report ready when the time is right
I also recognize that there is a political price to pay for such a decision, but when you run for President then you sometimes have to make the hard decisions. If you didn’t want to have to make them, then you should have stayed in the Senate.
So those of us who support the change can and will be patient. We will give the adminstration time to investigate the potential impact and to gather the required support within the armed services and within the political sphere.
But we are also watching and waiting, and that will not continue forever.