President Obama's calls for greater civic engagement is directly at odds with the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. The two things cannot be reconciled.
Discrimination based on sexual preference is just plain wrong. Telling gay volunteers "well, we suppose you can serve as long as you lie about who you are", is not only asinine, its dishonorable. Even as a purely practical matter, tuning away or firing highly qualified and trained volunteers at a time when our armed services are stretched to the limits by years of continuous war is frankly suicidal. Are American lives so cheap-- or has the world become so safe-- that we can blithely turn away those who would defend us just because of who they might like to kiss during their off-duty hours? Certainly not.
One of the things that most inspired me during then-candidate Obama's run for the Presidency was his dogged focus on civic engagement and public service. An entire generation-- mine, GenX-- grew up in a political environment where conservative anti-social, anti-government rhetoric dominated the landscape. Government workers were mindless drones and useless parasites. Public service was the last refuge of the loser who couldn't get a "real job".
80s and 90s Republicans were masters of "otherization" and one of the first targets of that isolate-and-shun strategy were public servants and community volunteers. Beginning with Reagan's declaration that government was the problem not the solution and continuing right up to today's fear-mongering about "Washington bureaucrats who want to get between you and your doctor", conservatives have waged a decades-long campaign to drive a wedge between the American people and their government. The principal theme of conservative politics has been that government isn't something you participate in, it is something that is done to you by a hostile other. Any idea without an explicit profit motive was inherently suspect. Anyone who tried to change things (or even thought that change was possible) was sneered at as a hopeless hippie do-gooder, or worse, some sort of sinister crypo-Stalinist hell-bent on taking away the people's inalienable right to starve and die at the whim of the Free Market. Candidate Obama took a bold stand against all that; calling upon people to get involved, to pay attention, to try to make a difference, to serve.
Obama's calls for civic re-engagement, his full embrace of grassroots volunteerism, and his elevation of public service was, to a large degree, what sealed the deal for me during the primaries. I watched in amazement as millions responded to his calls to get involved and it changed me. I took a long hard look in the mirror and laid my sneering indifference down. Cynicism is not sophistication. Apathy is a cancer and those who raise their hand to do something-- anything, however small-- in the service of their community are true healers.
It is from that perspective, civic engagement, that I find the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy so utterly appalling. Here we have people who have chosen to order their lives around a massive commitment to the public good; choosing to put their very lives and physical well-being on the line in the service of their fellow citizens. People who have proven willing to do the very thing we say we hold in highest esteem: to serve. And yet we tell them that, solely because of their personal sexual preferences, their service is not required. Worse, we tell them to go away. We rob them of their ability to contribute. We declare their sacrifice invalid. It drives a dagger right into the very principles of public service and volunteerism that carried President Obama into the White House. It is inhuman and it must end.
To end the travesty of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" we need both President Obama and the Congress to act. Unlike Truman's desegregation of the military, the President can't just end the madness with a stroke of his pen. There is legislation that codifies the bigotry into law and so it seems to me that our first step is to engage our allies on the Hill to bring a bill to overturn this mess.
Politicians (like sports figures and anyone else whose career depends on winning) tend be superstitious and I'm sure there are many old Dem warhorses who still blame DADT for derailing health care reform during the early years of the Clinton administration and they don't want to hand the Republicans a second chance to scream "ZOMG TEH GHEY!!" now that health policy is back on the table. But its not the 90s anymore and attitudes about gays serving openly in the military have changed dramatically. Those Congresspeople who are worried about Republican demagoguery and 90s-style attack ads should have a peek Friday's Gallup poll on the subject:
The finding that majorities of weekly churchgoers (60%), conservatives (58%), and Republicans (58%) now favor what essentially equates to repealing the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy implemented under President Clinton in 1993 is noteworthy for several reasons. First, the data show that these traditionally conservative groups are shifting on this issue, supporting it to a far greater extent than they support legalized gay marriage. Second, it suggests the political playing field may be softer on this issue, and President Barack Obama will be well-positioned to forge ahead with his campaign promise to end the military ban on openly gay service members with some support from more conservative segments of the population. To date, it is estimated that more than 12,500 servicemen and servicewomen have been discharged under the policy, including more than 200 since Obama took office.
(emphasis mine)
Majorities among even the most conservative constituencies in the country have finally come around to the idea that gay citizens shouldn't have their attempts to serve thrown back in their faces.
There is no reason-- not ethical, not practical, not political-- to continue to dishonor and deny the service of those gay Americans who have chosen a term in the military as their means to contribute to the common good. "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was a crazy policy to begin with and its long past time for the craziness to end.