The injury and injustice that the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) policy of the military (imposed on it by Congress) has done is pretty well recognized. It ranges from good patriotic gays and lesbians who seek to serve their nation being hounded from the service to the illegal harassment of straight folk who are falsely accused, to gays and lesbians who would be--and would like to be--good soldiers, sailors, aviators and Marines being steered away from military service.
The vast majority of progressives would like that policy to be done away with, and for our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters to be permitted to serve in the Armed Forces in exactly the same way, under the same rules, as the rest of us.
The truth is that time is on our side. Society's views are changing (with frustrating slowness, but steadily). Because of Bush's War, the military is so desperate to make its recruitment numbers that it is dropping standards on who it will let in (both in terms of education and criminal past), and also dropping its standards for keeping people in--behavior which would have resulted in discharge a decade ago is being effectively ignored now.
So, the system stinks. It injures people who would like to join. It injured people who have volunteered to serve. It injures the nation.
In fact, it injures the nation more than you might imagine. This is where I see a lever that just might help begin to move this absurd policy onto the scrapheap of history--pointing out to our legislators, fellow citizens, and the media the harm this policy is doing.
It's important to understand how the policy works, in actual practice. Remember that the military operates by the rules, and that despite limitations and horror stories, members of the armed services have rights. Remember also that most of the officer corps is more educated--and more liberal in outlook--than the average soldier. Relatively few of those officers are eager to root out gays or lesbians--and even those are instructed by the rules not to go looking, not to ask. The issue is only an issue if it is brought to their attention.
That can happen in two ways.
A member of the armed forces might come into the commanding officer's office and announce that he's gay (I'm going to generally use the masculine pronoun, etc., in recognition that most members of the services are male). I am told by an officer that his reaction--and that this is the norm--is typically along the lines of "Yeah, and so am I. Get out and go back to work." It's seen as an easy and obvious cop out for a young fellow who got in, realizes he wants out and... believes that by "being" gay, he can just get out. It doesn't work that way. Revealing oneself to be gay actually requires some evidence of homosexual leanings before a commander is likely to feel obliged to believe and take notice.
(Please note, the military doesn't care about what happened before one went on active duty. If you need to prove that you're gay, it has to be homosexual behavior of some sort while in the active service of the nation.)
The other way that it can become an issue is if someone else comes to the commander and accuses someone of being lesbian. The immediate concern is both that this might be someone using the accusation to screw with someone, to get them kicked out, and for the safety of the accused. But Kafka comes into the picture... because the Don't Ask, Don't Tell rule requires that an officer not just go and ask the accused individual--that would be asking, and one's not to ask.
In either case, once it's sufficiently serious enough to require being taken notice of--pay attention here--it requires a full blown investigation, and a report.
That, incidentally, is the lever. You may not recognize it yet, so let me unwrap it a bit so you can see it for what it is.
The military, as noted, runs by the rules. And there's a bureaucracy. And people have rights. So everything in one of these cases has to be done right. A big investigation is obligatory--and takes months to be done and to process. Here's what "big" means; an officer is generally relieved of all other duties and works on the investigation and report for at least a month. Then, as in all bureaucracies, it runs up and down the chain getting reviewed and flagged for correction, and eats more time in the process, and comes back for a final polish before... something happens.
See the lever yet? No? Ok...
Most officers have plenty to do--remember the military is stretched thin and busy with Bush's War, the forgotten war in Afghanistan and all the other things that the military is doing, too. And retention isn't great these days. Officers are needed doing real work--and DADT investigations and reports are a complete waste of vast amounts of time that can't be afforded. On top of that... they're complete wastes of valuable time, money and resources. Remember that we need to run things more efficiently? Remember that we need to squeeze out the waste in government?
I know one officer who tells me that he (and others) try the "Lalalala, I can't hear you," first. They really don't want to know, because they don't want to chase good soldiers out--and bad ones (gay, lesbian or straight) will find ways to let the command know they're bad; this isn't one. Things are getting (somewhat) better (de facto) in that increasingly, if a member of the services denies being gay, or insists that it was all in the past... and they're otherwise good soldiers, doing their jobs, the command is likely going to ignore the preponderance of evidence and let them stay. It's not how things should be--but it's evidence that things are moving in the right direction.
So, you see the lever now?
Don't Ask, Don't Tell is squandering money and crucially important resources--wasting precious time from needed officers to chase things which the military doesn't care about and which do not affect its operations or ability to perform its mission. We're running a huge deficit and the military budget is under pressure--as well as being strained by a war. We can't afford DADT.
We can't afford it not just because it's unjust, not just because it hurts the military's recruitment, training and retention of the people it needs, and not just because it devours huge amounts of officer time and effort on what are wildly pointless investigations, and not just because it wastes tax payer money chasing rumors and accusations of behavior that is legal for civilians. We can't afford it for all those reasons and although any one of them ought to be enough to torpedo such a pointless policy, the collection of them surely should be enough.
So, if you're in need of a lever to move a particularly boneheaded member of Congress, point out the waste of federal money and urgently needed resources. Maybe waste and abuse is an approach that will wake some of them up.