Six years after it was put into effect, the Pentagon’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy with regard to gays in uniform has proven to be more than ineffectual. It has made things worse.
The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network recently released its sixth annual report on the implementation of the policy, and it documented 968 incidents of anti-gay harassment in 1999, including one murder in addition to assaults, death threats and verbal taunts. That’s nearly 150 percent more cases than in 1998, itself a record year for such incidents.
In August, a month after Pfc. Barry Winchell, who was gay, was murdered at a Kentucky army base, the Pentagon announced that anti-gay harassment would not be tolerated and launched some training programs. Last month, Defense Secretary William Cohen announced still more training programs.
Enough with the training. It’s time for the Pentagon to put some teeth in its own policy, and punish violators as firmly as it disciplines anyone who willfully disobeys a military directive.
Nearly 500 of the incidents reported in 1999 took place after the Pentagon’s announcement in August. More shocking still, reports of harassment at Ft. Campbell continued even after Winchell’s murder attracted nationwide media attention. Either the message of `don’t ask’ is not getting through to the rank-and-file or it’s being ignored.
The two soldiers who killed Winchell were sent to prison, but during the six years `don’t ask’ has been in effect no one has been held to account for the policy’s manifest failure.
If anything, the evidence points to the policy’s being widely–and willfully–undermined. Psychologists, chaplains, and inspectors general often berate or turn in gay service members seeking their help. In several instances, especially in the Air Force, witch hunts against suspected gays and lesbians even led to the questioning of parents, siblings and close friends.
Women are especially affected. About 31 percent of all gay-related discharges last year were women, although they make up only 14 percent of the force. In some cases, all that was needed to initiate charges of lesbianism was a rebuff of a male colleague’s sexual advance.
In January, Britain joined most other European countries in lifting its ban on gays in the military, but it is unlikely Congress would allow such a change in the United States.
So we are left with `don’t ask, don’t tell’ as the only option–one that could be far more effective in protecting the rights of gay personnel if the Pentagon stopped treating it like a guideline and more like an order.
