THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, April 8, 1995 TAG: 9504060008
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 76 lines
Federal Judge Eugene Nickerson's recent ruling that the Pentagon's don't-ask,-don't-tell,-don't-pursue policy is unconstitutional because it violates homosexual service personnel's free speech and denies equal protection of the law won't be the last word in the quest by gays and lesbians for equality of treatment by the military. Rep. Newt Gingrich, the Georgia Republican who is House majority leader, predicts that Congress will respond to the court decision by reinstating the flat ban on homosexuals that preceded don't ask, don't tell.
It is Pentagon doctrine that the military cannot accommodate open homosexuality. Sodomy is punishable whatever the offenders' sexual orientation, and homosexuals are assumed to commit sodomous acts. Don't ask, don't tell appeared to many to constitute a useful balancing of individual rights and the military's imperatives because it seemed to concede that known homosexuals, not homosexuality per se, were harmful to the military mission.
That homosexuals and bisexuals have served and do serve in the ranks is widely understood. But the rules require that homosexuals and bisexuals, unlike heterosexuals, hide their orientation. That is impossible for some and difficult for others. So homosexuals' and bisexuals' lot in uniform tends not to be a happy one, in large part because of sporadic zeal - more often in peacetime than wartime - for identifying and cashiering them.
The Pentagon holds that open homosexuality impairs military readiness by creating tensions that damage small-unit cohesion. Mr. Gingrich says conservatives are disposed to take the military at its word.
Commanding officers often confront more errant behavior by personnel than anyone could wish for. Transgressions involve mainly heterosexuals, of course, there being far more of them, in uniform and out, than homosexuals and bisexuals. The wrongdoers include drunken drivers, illicit-drug users, wife batterers, thieves, rapists, molesters, brawlers, maimers, no-shows and other miscreants, including killers. But some of the offenders are homosexuals. Who could be surprised that COs and non-coms would not welcome the probability of more personnel problems flowing from open homosexuality and hostility toward it? There already are abundant challenges to discipline, good order and effective training and operations.
But white COs and non-coms didn't cheer the prospect of dealing with racially mixed units when President Truman desegregated the military. Did the president's order dispel racial bigotry? It did not. Did it multiply tensions in the ranks? It did. But who now argues credibly that the military or the nation was weakened by racially integrating the armed forces - or, for that matter, by expanding opportunities for women in the military?
President Truman's desegregation order was widely and heatedly disapproved. President Clinton ignited a fire-storm when he moved to keep his campaign promise to abolish the nearly half-century-old ban on homosexuals. Don't ask, don't tell was the outcome.
Has the compromise worked? To some degree, perhaps. But closeted gays and lesbians in the military still risk being found out and booted, as many hundreds are each year - some for good reason, some not. Among those seeking equal treatment within the military are some standout personnel who have disclosed their sexual orientation and been shown the exit.
This dispute will drag on. Casualties among the aggrieved will mount. That's how it's been for women and a host of ethnic, racial and religious minorities who have shattered legal, political, economic and even social barriers to claim a share of the American Dream.
The American ideal asks us to judge others individually. In thought, word and deed, we often depreciate others on the basis of their membership in groups we disdain for their difference. Writing off whole groups wastes human resources and forestalls the possibility of enriching human exchanges. It is unfair and injurious to the targets of our distrust, distaste or hatred, and ultimately damaging to all. That some capable, conforming and loyal Americans are deemed unfit for military duty solely because of their minority sexual orientation - or disclosure of it - and many others' fear and loathing of it is indefensible and counterproductive. by CNB