Barack Obama: Don't fix Don't Tell

Someone should tell incoming president Obama that it would be a big mistake to change the "Don't Ask; Don't Tell" policy in favor of one that "will allow gays to serve openly in all branches of the military forces." What the excellent "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy -- designed by the late sociologist Charles Moskos - did essentially was tell servicemen and women "We will not ask and we will will not pry if you will not make a point of your sexuality." The issue was one of blatancy, of expressiveness. The military was trying to control for expressive expressions of a homosexual sexual preference, just the way it attempts to tamp down expressions of heterosexual interest in gender-integrated military units. "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was a compromise and a very sane one, which recognized that military men and women serve in very intimate, stressful conditions and that unwanted sexual attention - even perceived sexual attention - would make those conditions even more oppressive. As someone who has spent a lot of time on army bases, navy vessels, and training camps (as research for a book that was not about gays in the military) I can tell you that gays currently serve in the military fairly openly - in that most servicepeople on a base or a ship can tell you who is gay or who is not. These communities are simply too small and intimate for this to be otherwise.

Opponents of "Don't Ask" say that it forbids homosexuals from, say, keeping a photograph of a partner on their desk. This may be, but the new law is more likely to be invoked in courts when the military tries to discharge a man or woman who acts exhibitionistically and disruptively. The charge will, in effect, be sexual-orientation neutral (he or she was disruptive) but lawyers will seize on the newly created discrimination category to claim that he or she is being discriminated against for being "an open homosexual"... and in a sense they will be right, if "open homosexual" is defined as one who is very blatant about his or her sexuality. In other words, it will be impossible to draw a line between what is too open and what is just normal, garden variety "I want to keep a photograph of my partner in my sleeping-bunk" type open. Once again the people who will profit the most will be lawyers.