By DMITRY RASHNITSOV

The very first president of the United States, George Washington, once said, “An army of asses led by a lion is better than an army of lions led by an ass.” Just like in Mr. Washington’s day, in today’s military, some of those asses may like to stare at some of the asses of their fellow fighters, but they are only allowed to do it in secret, thanks to the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) military policy which bans gays and lesbians from serving openly in any of the United States armed services.

This discriminatory policy is near coming to an end. On May 27, 2010, the U.S. House of Representatives approved the Murphy amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011 on a 234-194 vote that would repeal the relevant sections of the law 60 days after a study by the U.S. Department of Defense is completed and the U.S. Defense Secretary, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the U.S. President certify that repeal would not harm military effectiveness. This study is expected to be completed on December 1, 2010.

On the same day the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee advanced the identical measure in a 16-12 vote to be included in the Defense Authorization Act. The amended defense bill passed the U.S. House on May 28, 2010, and the U.S. Senate is expected to vote on its version in the summer.

About 14,000 servicemembers have been discharged under the 17-year old policy and the government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars replacing discharged members. Estimates say that about 65,000 gay and lesbian servicemembers are currently on active military duty today with another 1 million gay and lesbian veterans throughout the U.S.

While many groups and individuals have spent the better part of a decade and a half fighting to end this policy, many do not know the background and history that has come with this struggle. The Florida Agenda takes some time to talk about the history of DADT and present the facts for repealing the bill, the arguments against repealing, and what you can do to get this legislation passed.

How we got to DADT

Getting back to General George Washington’s take on asses, in 1778 he helped push through the discharge of Lieutenant Gotthold Frederick Enslin from the Continental Army for sodomy, which at the time was a crime.

During World War II in the 1940’s the military began administering psychological screenings on all new recruits. At the time, being a homosexual was still considered a disease by the psychiatric community, so anyone who had engaged in any gay activity was not allowed in the army or automatically discharged for being crazy.

By 1982, the gay rights movement had been going strong for more than a decade and started to go after the U.S. military’s policies. At that time, the Department of Justice issued a statement saying, “that homosexuality was clearly incompatible with military service.”

When Bill Clinton was elected President in 1992, he planned on introducing a law that would overturn the ban on gays and lesbians serving in the military. Since the Congress was controlled by republicans, the bill had no chance of passing. Clinton agreed to a compromise in 1993, which later became known as Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Pursue, Don’t Harass. “Don’t Ask” mandates that military or appointed officials will not ask about or require members to reveal their sexual orientation. “Don’t Tell” states that a member may be discharged if s/he says that s/he is homosexual or bisexual or makes a statement indicating that s/he has a tendency towards or intends to engage in homosexual activities. “Don’t Pursue” establishes what is minimally required for an investigation to be initiated. “Don’t Harass” was added to the policy later. It ensures that the military will not allow harassment or violence against servicemembers for any reason.

Over the years, the law was challenged in court five different times, but was never successful in being overturned by a judge. Hence how we got to where we are.

Reasons to repeal

As far back as 1993, studies were completed showing that having openly gay personnel in the military would do no harm

The National Defense Research Institute prepared a study for the Office of the Secretary of Defense published as Sexual Orientation and U.S. Military Personnel Policy: Options and Assessment. It concluded that “circumstances could exist under which the ban on homosexuals could be lifted with little or no adverse consequences for recruitment and retention if the policy were implemented with care, principally because many factors contribute to individual enlistment and re-enlistment decisions.”

“Today, as in 1993, the real question is not whether sexual minorities can be successfully integrated into the military,” said Dr. Gregory M. Herek, associate research psychologist at the University of California at Davis. “The social science data answered this question in the affirmative then, and do so even more clearly now. Rather, the issue is whether the United States is willing to repudiate its current practice of antigay discrimination and address the challenges associated with a new policy.”

The American Psychological Association has backed up that claim stating, “when openly gay, lesbian and bisexual individuals have been allowed to serve in the U.S. Armed Forces, there has been no evidence of disruption or loss of mission effectiveness.”

In February 2005, the Government Accountability Office released a study saying that it cost the military nearly $200 million from 1994-2003 to enforce DADT and train new members to replace the ones that were discharged.

Beyond the scientific data, many gay and lesbian veterans groups have sprung up and started telling the stories of their members. The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) has started a campaign called stories from the front line where current military members write letters to President Obama telling how they are more than accepted by their fellow army, navy, marine or air force fighters for being who they are. A 2006 Zogby poll showed that 66% of respondents who had experience with gays in their unit said their presence had either no impact or a positive impact on their personal morale, while 64% said the same applied to overall unit morale.

Finally, in a February 2010 Quinnipiac University national poll showed that 57% of American voters favor gays serving openly and 66% said the current policy is discrimination. It was the first time that public opinion had crossed the halfway threshold, and polls continue to show that a majority of the public is in support of the repeal.

Reasons not to appeal DADT

As with any decision revolving around the LGBT community there are many groups and organizations fighting leave DADT in place. On June 4, 2010 Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services wrote a letter to congress urging them not to repeal the law.

Sacrificing the moral beliefs of individuals” in response to “merely political considerations is neither just nor prudent especially for the armed forces at a time of war,” Broglio said. “The effect has the potential of being enormous and overwhelming and nothing should be changed until there is certainty that morale will not suffer.”

The Family Research Council said that “homosexuals in the military are about three times as likely to commit sexual assaults as heterosexuals are.”

“The most common type of gay attack is one in which the offender fondles or performs oral sex on a sleeping victim,” said Senior Fellow for Policy Studies at the FRC, Peter Sprigg, who cited a 2009 study that 8.2% of sexual assaults in the military were perpetrated by gays. “In a number of these cases the victim was sleeping or intoxicated. Under those circumstances, their memory may be clouded and so the evidence may not be strong enough to stand up in a court-martial and actually prove guilt on a charge of forcible sodomy for example.”

The American Family Association recently suggested that, “Hitler was a homosexual, and that he recruited homosexual storm troopers because straight soldiers were simply not savage enough.”

Even some Military chiefs have come out against the repeal right now.

“My concern is that legislative changes at this point, regardless of the precise language used, may cause confusion on the status of the law in the Fleet and disrupt the review process itself by leading Sailors to question whether their input matters,” said Admiral Gary Roughead, Chief of Naval Operations.

Finally, some Senators said they plan on standing in the way of the legislation.

“In all due respect, right now the military is functioning extremely well in very difficult conditions,’ said Sen. John McCain, (R-Ariz). “We have to have an assessment on recruitment, on retention and all the other aspects of the impact on our military if we change the policy. In my view, and I know that a lot of people don’t agree with that, the policy has been working and I think it’s been working well.”

What can you do?

Since the House of Representatives has already approved the amendment with the repeal, now is the time to contact Florida’s Senators and make sure they follow suit. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) has stated that he will vote for a repeal of DADT. Sen. Nelson can be contacted at 202-224-5274 or http://billnelson.senate.gov. Sen. George LeMieux is not in favor of the current DADT repeal. He can be contacted at 954-760-4124 or http://lemieux.senate.gov.

Of the three candidates running for LeMieux’s seat, Florida Governor Charlie Crist and Rep. Kendrick Meek have stated that they do support a DADT repeal, while Marco Rubio has not publically stated his position on the repeal.