California Representative Ellen
Tauscher announced she would begin a renewed push to end the
16-year-old ban against gay men and lesbians serving openly in the
military on Monday. Dr. Nathaniel Frank, senior research fellow at
the Palm Center, joined her in making the announcement. Frank
discussed his book on cable television last night where he alleges
top military advisors invented their rational for keeping gays quiet
in the military.
“Don't ask, don't tell” was
implemented by Congress in 1993 and signed by President Bill Clinton.
The law prescribes discharge as the remedy for gay service members
who do not remain quiet about their sexuality or do not remain
celibate.
President Barack Obama pledged his
support for repeal on the campaign trail, but since taking office has
only spoken once on the issue. Last month, the Boston Globe
quoted Obama saying the administration would wait for a Pentagon
assessment on the issue before moving forward. Gay rights activists
who have made repeal a top priority were disheartened.
“We do not need another report to
tell us what we already know and what earlier reports have long since
concluded: The sexual orientation of a service member is
irrelevant,” Aubrey Sarvis, president of Servicemembers Legal
Defense Network, a group that advocates for the repeal of the
military's gay ban, wrote in a Huffington Post column. “What
is relevant is how well he or she does the job.”
But yesterday, after Tauscher
introduced her Military Readiness Enhancement Act, an Obama spokesman
sounded a bit more upbeat.
“[Obama has] begun consulting closely
with Secretary Gates and Chairman Mullen so that this change is done
in a sensible way that strengthens our armed forces and national
security,” White House Spokesman Tommy Vietor was quoted in The
Associated Press.
And last night, things got even more
interesting when Frank went on MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show and
said “don't ask” advisors now admit the policy was a deliberate
deception based on no empirical evidence.
Frank, author of Unfriendly
Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America,
told openly lesbian Rachel Maddow that military advisors to Clinton
have admitted to the deception.
“They said it was based on nothing,”
Frank told Maddow. “It was rooted in their own prejudices and
fears. They even said they didn't know what sexual orientation
meant.”
“Instead they crated this unit
cohesion argument. Which is the idea that openly gay service will
somehow undermine unit cohesion and that you have to force service
members to lie in order to preserve unit cohesion. Instead of the
other way around, that forcing people to lie actually has its own
impact on unit cohesion.”
Frank agreed with Maddow's statement:
“A key advisor to this panel admitted full-stop that the unit
cohesion argument was completely made up out of whole cloth.”
Frank said he was “cautious” about
Obama's announcement to review the law.
“Of course military leaders should be
consulted,” Frank said. “But he should do it armed with the
confidence that we now have the research showing that openly gay
service doesn't have any negative impact on the military. And, in
fact, the policy itself is what's causing us to lose soldiers and to
force service members to lie to one another. And that's bad for unit
cohesion.”
Opponents of repeal say open service
would “sexualize” the military and often portray gay men and
women as sexual predators who infiltrate the military to have at its
sexual bounty.