Obama’s Broken DADT Promise

Rachel Maddow has been in the forefront in reporting on service members who are being discharged under DADT and telling their stories.

She had Lieutenant Colonel Victor Fehrenbach on her show, talking about his pending discharge from the Air Force for being gay.  The military is — again — firing a hero from its ranks while President Obama is standing idly by, breaking his campaign promise to end DADT (and, by the way, repeal DOMA).

Here is the Maddow show’s segment with LTC Fehrenbach:

Maddow interviewed First Lieutenant Dan Choi in March (and again in May — this video is from his appearance on the Maddow show in May), a New York National Guardsman, who is also being discharged for being gay.  He, by the way, is an Arabic linguist, which we happen to need at the moment.

During this segment, Maddow also reported on the case of Second Lieutenant Sandy Tsao, who is also being discharged for being gay.  Tsao sent a personal letter to President Obama, who wrote her a hand-written letter in which he promised action on DADT, but said that he needed some time to get the bill through Congress.  (Rep. Joe Sestak of Pennsylvania says in this clip, though, that this could happen very quickly.  I’m sure it could be — Obama has the political capital to have Congress act quickly on DADT and DOMA.  But he has not.)

To my knowledge — and I think I’d notice — he has proposed no legislation to repeal DADT (or DOMA) and his spokesman, Robert Gibbs, has dodged many questions from the press on progress on these front.  The Pentagon spokesman said that there were no plans “in this building” to implement a repeal of DADT and strongly implied that the White House has not asked the Pentagon to begin planning for this eventuality.

All service members who are discharged for homosexuality are discharged for conduct detrimental to good order and discipline.  What I have yet to see is real proof on how being gay and being in the military harms good order and discipline in the military.  Can someone show a court of law how this is a problem for the military?  I don’t want to see or hear about the same straw man arguments that simply spout the same tired, untrue reasons.  I’m talking about laying out a case in court that proves it.  I don’t think it can be done.

Now, back to Obama.  As Pam’s House Blend points out, LTC Fehrenbach, 1LT Choi and 2LT Tsao and all the other discharged-for-being-gay service members don’t have time for President Obama to get the lead out.  Their honorable, heroic careers are over now.  This isn’t a political game — real people are being harmed because of President Obama’s and Congress’s inaction.  And what’s more, I submit that the military is being harmed and weakened too, losing good people who want to serve their country and who have been serving honorably and heroically.

Another Reason DADT Must Be Repealed

The Iowa National Guard will boot legally married service members from the service if he or she is married to someone of the same sex. 

From the Des Moines Register (hat tip: Pam’s House Blend):

Gay and lesbian military service members who are legally married in Iowa can still be involuntarily discharged from the Iowa National Guard and other military branches under a federal law that prevents homosexuals from openly serving in the armed forces, military officials say.

The federal law, approved by Congress in 1993, takes precedence over the Iowa Supreme Court ruling in April that legalized same-sex marriage, according to legal experts. The ruling struck down Iowa’s Defense of Marriage Act, which had limited marriage to a man and a woman.

The Iowa National Guard is prevented from implementing the Iowa Supreme Court’s ruling for its personnel because it is a federally recognized military organization, said Lt. Col. Gregory Hapgood Jr., the Iowa National Guard’s public affairs officer.

“We are a microcosm of society,” Hapgood said. “We have gay people in the Iowa National Guard. But under that policy, that is not the test. It is about conduct, not about whether you are gay.”

The federal law is often described as “don’t ask, don’t tell” because it permits gays and lesbians to serve in the military if they are not open about their sexual orientation.

I’m sure the Iowa Guard is correct legally in its assessment.  But it just points out one more reason why DADT must be repealed.  The regulation of marriage is a state’s right.  Iowa has chosen to allow same-sex marriage.  It’s inevitable that some part of the newly married same-sex couples would be in the military, including the Iowa National Guard, which is their right under state law.

The problem is that the National Guard is part of the US Armed Forces and is covered under both federal and state law (recruits take an oath to both the United States and their individual states).  Because of DADT, this places an additional unfair burden on gay people who both want to marry and serve their country and states.

From the Des Moines Register (sidebar to the story linked above):

National Guard has dual mission

TWO OATHS: Soldiers and airmen serving in the National Guard take two oaths: In the first, they swear allegiance to the federal government; in the second, they swear to support the state government. Members of the regular armed forces only take a federal oath.

TWO COMMANDERS: The peacetime commander of the National Guard is the state’s governor, who can call Guard members to duty for emergencies, such as responding to floods and tornadoes. In times of war or national emergency, the president of the United States can call National Guard members to federal duty, such as for combat service in Iraq and Afghanistan.

FEDERAL REQUIREMENTS: As members of the U.S. armed forces, National Guard soldiers and airmen are subject to federal military requirements, including congressionally approved restrictions on homosexual conduct, according to Iowa National Guard officials.

Gay people should be able to serve openly.  To force them into the closet if they want to serve forces them to deny a large part of themselves.  I served in the 1980s.  I know other gay people served, too.  I know that some people in our units knew and had no problem.  (Some did, of course; it was the 1980s and gay people hadn’t nearly begun to make strides toward openness and equality.)

DADT is idiotic as a policy, beyond the human cost to gay service members.  Gay linguists — who speak Arabic, for example, which is needed at the moment — are being discharged.  We need everyone we can get, honestly; we’re fighting two wars.

DADT must be repealed.  We cannot allow the Obama administration to back off its promise to repeal this idiotic law.  We cannot allow the Obama administration to back off its promises to gays.

Billing Private Insurance for War Wounds

The Obama administration is floating an idea to bill third-party insurers for wounds suffered by service members in combat zones.  I have to note that I am an Obama admirer.  But this is an absolutely idiotic idea.  I can think of about 10 reasons for not doing  this right off the top of my head without thinking too deeply about it.  I can think of no good reason to do it even after some consideration.

The Obama administration has proposed to bill veterans’ private insurance companies for combat-related injuries. But the plan has incited an uproar on Capitol Hill and charges from veterans groups that the plan is unethical and would further burden the war-wounded and their families.

The proposal, which would save the Department of Veterans Affairs $530 million a year, threatens to complicate the new administration’s relations with the 25 million Americans who have served in the military.

The plan would authorize the VA to pursue reimbursement of medical costs from private insurers, or so-called third-party billing, for treating injuries and medical conditions sustained in the course of a veteran’s military service. The VA already pursues third-party billing for non-service-related conditions.

The article goes on to note that both the House and Senate veterans’ affairs committees rejected this proposal. 

I had hoped, as I began to read the article, that Obama wasn’t seriously floating this kind of idea and that it was just a wild trial balloon that was leaked badly.  Apparently not, though:

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs today confirmed that the proposal remains under consideration, but he said the administration has not yet made “the final . . . decision on third-party billing as it relates to service-related injuries.”

Veterans groups are concerned that this policy would make employers less willing to hire veterans, for fear of the price of covering them, and that insurance benefits for veterans’ families would also be jeopardized.

“To ask veterans to save $500 million in a [VA] budget of over $100 billion is not only bad policy, it is bad politics,” said Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, who attended the White House meeting.

This would unfairly put more of the burden of this war on to veterans and their families, as well as the businesses that employ them. 

I know the government has historically tried to push healthcare costs on to the private sector.  This started right after World War II.  It’s why we have an employer-based system of health insurance today.  But to push this kind of healthcare cost onto veterans and their employers is absolutely unfair and should never happen.  These veterans were wounded in the service of their country.  Their country absolutely must support them when they get home, which includes good medical care and other support.  That is part of the reason why the Veterans Administration was set up in the first place.  Saving $500 million annually — while being real money — is peanuts when you look at the VA’s whole budget. 

In fact I don’t care what it costs.  We can’t hang these people out to dry, and then stick their employers for the bill.  We did enough of that at Walter Reed in 2006 and 2007.  And, by the way, this does not fit with trying to reform healthcare.  It’s mealy-mouthed and craven.  This kind of idea, President Obama, is not change we can believe in.

She Wasn’t Asked; She Didn’t Tell

Here’s a major reason why Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is a failure: human nature.  Someone who has it out for another person can tell for the gay service member and then the witch hunt begins.  If someone has a grudge, he or she will use any means necessary to “get” the other person, especially if there’s an idiotic federal law that invites witch hunts.

Amy Brian was discharged from the Kansas National Guard under DADT after nine years of honorable service, including tours in Iraq.  She has now suffered severe consequences — loss of her job, loss of her educational benefits leading to her being unable to complete a Master’s degree.  She received a general discharge under honorable conditions.  That’s not an honorable discharge, so she lost all her benefits.

It’s shameful that the military does this; DADT needs to be repealed as soon as this stimulus bill heads to the president’s desk.

From The Topeka Capital-Journal:

Amy Brian found out this past November just what the military’s “don’t ask-don’t tell” policy means.

No one in the military asked her if she was gay during her nine years in the Kansas Army National Guard. And she didn’t tell anybody in the military she was gay.

“I’d never really tried to hide my homosexuality to the close people I worked with,” she said. “And they didn’t really seem to care or think any different of it.”

But in August 2008, a Kansas Army National Guard lieutenant informed Brian she was being investigated for homosexual conduct after a female civilian co-worker at the U.S. Property and Fiscal Office said she had seen Brian kissing a woman in the checkout line at a Wal-Mart store.

From the moment the co-worker made her statement, Brian’s performance record and the sacrifices she had made to serve her country in Iraq no longer mattered.

A female civilian co-worker with a grudge blew up Amy Brian’s career.

The article continues:

All seemed to be going well until this past July, when another gay Guardsman told Brian “somebody has it in for you” and advised her to delete her MySpace page, where she had indicated she was a lesbian.

A couple of weeks later, Brian was notified she was being investigated for homosexual conduct. Jared Maag, a major in the Kansas Army National Guard who works as deputy solicitor general with the Kansas Attorney General’s Office, was appointed as her counsel.

Brian said the effort to remove her from the Guard started with a barrage of anonymous e-mails referencing her sexual orientation and a networking Web site where her photo was posted. The e-mails were sent to her chain of command, including the Kansas Adjutant General’s Office.

Maag said it was his impression “the e-mails in and of themselves were not credible” and it would be difficult for the Guard to prove who posted information on a Web site. However, the civilian’s statement was seen as credible enough by the Guard to initiate an investigation.

“Somebody has it in for you.”  I’ll grant the point that it may not have been the wisest move on Brian’s part to post that she was gay on a MySpace page, but that’s not really the point.  The Kansas Guard didn’t find that credible.  What they found credible was the civilian with an axe to grind.

The article concludes:

Brian’s life since her military discharge has been stressful. She went without work for two months and dipped into her 401(k) savings to get by. She couldn’t finish her master’s degree because she had lost her educational benefits.

Most of all, she has had a difficult time rectifying the discharge in her mind. She said she served with heterosexual soldiers who were found guilty of adultery, sexual harassment, and credit card fraud and received disciplinary actions instead of discharges.

She worked with civilians — including her accuser — whose jobs were protected by laws guaranteeing they couldn’t be fired because of their sexual orientation.

“I had so many gay friends in the military,” she said. “I know it (her discharge) probably made them nervous all of a sudden.”

Brian said “don’t ask-don’t tell” originally was implemented to protect military personnel who are homosexual, but instead has paved the way for the discharge of many good soldiers.

“It didn’t make a difference when I went to Iraq,” she said of her sexual orientation. “It didn’t make a difference when I drove that truck. It didn’t make a difference in my ability to serve my country.”

Brian said she won’t bad-mouth her commanders or the Kansas Army National Guard for following military policy. She looks forward to the day when the “don’t ask-don’t tell” policy is voided and she can re-enlist for a third time.

President Barack Obama has said he generally opposes the “don’t ask-don’t tell” policy and can “reasonably” see it being repealed. More than a hundred retired U.S. military leaders have signed a statement calling for the policy to end.

“Someday,” Brian said, “that policy will change.”

It needs to change now.  It’s not fair or just to discharge good gay soldiers or sailors or Marines or airmen while keeping the heterosexual adulterers.  We’re involved in two wars.  We need every person we can get who wants to serve, regardless of sexual orientation.  Even if we weren’t in two wars, it would still be a matter of fairness and of encouraging service to one’s country.

Let’s get out of the dark ages and understand what reality actually is.  Gay people can serve, and serve well.  Many have and many are serving now while denying part of themselves.  Grow up. America.

Obama to End Don’t Ask Don’t Tell

Barack Obama said during the campaign that he does not support Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.  Now, his spokesman is promising that Obama will end the policy.  It’s an overdue move.  DADT was ill-advised even in the 1990s and honestly is something I’ve never forgiven Sam Nunn for. 

From the linked article:

President Obama will end the 15-year-old “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that has prevented homosexual and bisexual men and women from serving openly within the U.S. military, a spokesman for the president-elect said.

Obama said during the campaign that he opposed the policy, but since his election in November he has made statements that have been interpreted as backpedaling. On Friday, however, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs, responding on the transition team’s Web site to a Michigan resident who asked if the new administration planned to get rid of the policy, said:

“You don’t hear politicians give a one-word answer much. But it’s ‘Yes.’ “

Gibbs is right — it’s not often that we hear bluntness from a politician.  It’s refreshing.

An ABC poll in July found that three-quarters of Americans supported allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military compared to 44 percent of Americans who expressed the same support in 1993, when President Bill Clinton approved “don’t ask, don’t tell” as what he called an “honorable compromise” that nevertheless bitterly disappointed his supporters in the gay community.

Colin Powell, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., both of whom backed the 1993 policy, recently called for it to be re-evaluated. John Shalikashvili, who followed Powell as chairman, has called for its repeal, as has former Georgia Republican Rep. Bob Barr, an opponent of gay rights and legal protections for gays. In an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal, Barr disparaged the policy as wasting money and talent.

Attitudes are changing about gay people in general; it’s logical that attitudes about gays serving openly in the military would change as well.  Attitudes are also changing about gay marriage, although that’s moving a bit more slowly.

Recently, the main active support for “don’t ask, don’t tell” has come from the nonprofit Center for Military Readiness, whose founder, Elaine Donnelly, and other officers did not respond to requests for comment.

Donnelly has argued that ending the ban on gays serving openly in the military would devastate unit cohesion and morale by ordering heterosexual troops into “forced cohabitation” with openly gay and lesbian troops. But critics of the policy say society has changed since “don’t ask, don’t tell” was implemented to address similar concerns.

I’ve talked about Elaine Donnelly before.  Her arguments amount to little more than bigotry and the same anti-gay meme that’s getting to be so tiresome.  She does not have an intellectually-honest argument, so she’s constructed the same old fear argument.  Hmm — that sounds a lot like the arguments that people who are against same-sex marriage use.

More recent years have seen high-profile discharges of gay Arabic linguists and other troops whose military jobs were deemed essential in Iraq, Afghanistan and the “war on terror” – dismissals that struck many people as inexplicable, said sociologist Melissa Embser-Herbert, author of “The U.S. Military’s ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Policy: A Reference Handbook.”

“We know of gay, lesbian, bisexual veterans who have served in combat theater, and I think that’s also a big piece of it,” she said. “It’s a much harder sell to the general public that that person who died or lost a leg didn’t deserve to be serving their country.”

It is idiotic and self-defeating to have people we need in the military — such as Arabic linguists — being discharged because they’re gay.  We need those people.  They’re critical to the mission.  But that’s what the military did, even as it was fighting a war in Arabic-speaking Iraq.  When I was in the service we talked about military logic being backward; this certainly is an example of it.

We have an all-volunteer military.  That depends on the stream of recruits in an era when many can make more money in the private sector — without people shooting at them.  If we have people who want to serve, we need to welcome them, train them, and invest in their success. 

It’s past time for DADT to be repealed.    I hope legislation is passed within Obama’s first 100 days.  It’s vital to our long-term national security.

More on the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Hearing

Andrew Sullivan’s blog has a post on the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell hearing.  It’s written by hilzoy, and really captures the issues and the personal feelings behind it.  Navy Captain Joan Darrah’s testimony is particularly poignant.

More on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

Elaine Donnelly, President of the Center for Military Readiness, testified yesterday before the House Armed Services Committee about gays in the military.  Apparently she is one of the people I mentioned yesterday (those who need to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into the light); she has been crusading for years to keep women out of the military and is now talking about gays in the military.

She warned yesterday about “transgenders in the military,” of lesbians taking pictures of people in the shower, and of gays spreading HIV positivity throughout the ranks.  So, she appears to be misogynistic, transphobic, homophobic, and generally fearful of change. 

From the linked (above) article:

“We’re talking about real consequences for real people,” Donnelly proclaimed. Her written statement added warnings about “inappropriate passive/aggressive actions common in the homosexual community,” the prospects of “forcible sodomy” and “exotic forms of sexual expression,” and the case of “a group of black lesbians who decided to gang-assault” a fellow soldier.

At the witness table with Donnelly, retired Navy Capt. Joan Darrah, a lesbian, rolled her eyes in disbelief. Retired Marine Staff Sgt. Eric Alva, a gay man who was wounded in Iraq, looked as if he would explode.

She’s right about the real consequences for real people crack — those people are the gays and lesbians she has maligned with her words.  Does she honestly think that all gays and lesbians do is go around all day, looking for sex?  (As for transgendered people in the military, I think they may be disqualified for physical reasons.  They are going through all kinds of changes physically — and mentally — the military isn’t the place for that.  This from someone who is very sympathetic to transgendered people and what they deal with.)

Gays and lesbians (as well as transgendered people) are productive members of society.  They hold jobs, pay their bills, raise their kids, love each other and their families, go to church, give to charity, and otherwise contribute to their communities.  I’m not saying that there aren’t any bad apples — there are those in any population.  But if a gay man or woman went around all day, looking for sex, how could he or she do all the things (and more) I’ve named in my list?  No one is attracted to every person who is a member of the gender to which one is attracted.  In other words, every gay man or woman is not attracted to every other man or woman. 

It’s ridiculous, as is Elaine Donnelly’s argument.  Her argument is nothing but homophobic rantings, guised as reasonable speech on policy.  What about the sergeant, sitting next to her?  Was he looking for sex all day?  Obviously not.  He was wounded in Iraq for his fellow Marines and for his country.  Let’s get real and move into the 21st century.  Democrats in Congress appear to be doing that.  Let’s hope that there’s a president next January who will help them.

End of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell?

In a long, long overdue move, Democrats hope to repeal the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” ban on gays serving openly in the military.  Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is ludicrous on its face; it always was (I don’t think I’ll ever forgive Sam Nunn for the damage he caused here).  It didn’t stop the witch hunts, looking for gays, and didn’t stop all the discharges; 12,342 service members have been discharged for being gay since 1994, according to the linked article. 

Among those 12,342 discharged were some enormously talented people including Arabic speakers who are sorely needed at the moment.  We’re fighting an insurgency in both Iraq and Afghanistan (as well as a “War on Terror”).  Doesn’t it make sense to keep people — at almost any cost — who can talk to the people who live in the countries we’re trying to pacify?  Of course it does.

We should be looking to recruit anyone who wants to serve and is physically and mentally fit enough to perform that service.  We have a stretched military that needs all the good people it can get.

Barack Obama gets this — he is for repealing the ban.  From a Military Times interview with him:

Q: Senator, if I may, we’ve entered the lightning round — “don’t ask don’t tell,” you want to repeal it. Why isn’t the policy working?

A: There are equity issues involved, but there are also effectiveness issues involved. And I think that at a time when we are pressed, we should have an attitude of “all hands on deck.” If we can’t field enough Arab linguists, we shouldn’t be preventing an Arab linguist from serving his or her country because of what they do in private. I think [retired Army] Gen. John Shalikashvili’s assessment is right, that people’s attitudes have evolved. You’ve got our British counterparts and Israeli counterparts without this policy, and nobody would suggest that they have had problems on the ground.

I want to make sure that we are doing it in a thoughtful and principled way. But I do believe that at a time when we are short-handed, that everybody who is willing to lay down their lives on behalf of the United States, and can do so effectively, can perform critical functions, should have the opportunity to do so.

John McCain apparently does not get this.  He’s stuck in the past (or is throwing another bone to his base).  From an April 16, 2007, letter to the Service Members Legal Defense Network:

["Don't Ask, Don't Tell"] unambiguously maintains that open homosexuality within the military services presents an intolerable risk to morale, cohesion, and discipline….I believe the polarization of personnel and breakdown of unit effectiveness is too high a price to pay for well-intentioned but misguided efforts to elevate the interests of a minority of homosexual service members above those of their units. Most importantly, the national security of the United States, not to mention the lives of our men and women in uniform, are put at grave risk by policies detrimental to the good order and discipline which so distinguish America’s Armed Services. For these reasons, which have nothing to do with my personal judgments about homosexual behavior, I remain opposed to the open expression of homosexuality in the U.S. military.”

It’s a shame that there’s still so much ignorance and bigotry (I am accusing no one of being a bigot) in our country, especially among those in power (or who are seeking that power).  I’m talking mainly about social conservatives, who can’t seem to grasp that times have changed, there is widespread acceptance of gays and lesbians, and it’s time to move forward.  But if you look at our history, there are always groups of people who need to be dragged — kicking and screaming — into the light.

Idiocy in the Military

Let me preface this post by saying that I fully support every man and woman in the military. I spent three years in the Army (from 1986-1989) so I understand a bit about the military and the constraints under which people serve (although I never saw combat). I have all the respect in the world for the military and the people who make it up.

I just read an incredible story in the St. Petersburg (Florida) Times. It’s about a decorated soldier who was sent out of Iraq because he’s an atheist and the Army can no longer ensure his safety from his fellow soldiers.

This is ironic, really, on so many levels. It shows how idiotic the people running this country (for the moment) are. The United States is engaged in a war on terror. A case can be made that it’s a war on radical Islam. If you’re a Muslim living in the Middle East (probably not even just there), you could believe that the West is engaged in a war to eradicate Islam itself. I personally don’t believe that’s true, but I can certainly see how others might believe it.

As a matter of public relations only (and isn’t the Bush Administration good at spin?), don’t they want to cast the war as a political war, not a religious war? As a matter of practicality, don’t they need every available soldier or Marine available to fight this ill-conceived war? (No, I won’t get started on gays in the military here other than to say that I believe they should be able to serve openly.)

Another idiotic story is the one about the female medic who won the Silver Star in combat in Afghanistan and then was removed from combat. (See story here.) It makes no sense at all. She was the only medic available and she went out and did her job so well as to win the nation’s third-highest award for gallantry in action (pinned on by Vice President Cheney, I might add). She’s a hero. She should have been left alone to do her job and keep saving lives.

As I said above, I have all the respect for the people in the military. But there are some really dumb decisions made by the leadership. It’s time to get out of the 1950s and move the military (and the nation) into the 21st century.

These are the realities: We’re fighting an ill-conceived and unpopular war in Iraq while largely neglecting the justified war in Afghanistan. It’s stretching the military to its breaking point. Good people serve in the military – gay, straight, atheist, male, female. Let’s wake up to the reality and support them.