Depriving our nation of the protection of more than 10,000 dedicated soldiers and deterring countless more from joining the military is only part of the cost this country has paid for the so-called “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy against homosexuals in the military. It also has cost us $363 million over 10 years, according to a new study by the University of California.
So how badly do you want to keep homosexuals from serving this country? Ponder that for a minute. That’ll be $69.06.
And don’t even try to claim that only soldiers who publicly reveal their sexuality are the only ones discharged. Admissions that would normally be kept private, such as those between a soldier and his doctor or her psychologist can be used as evidence against them. People who are suspected of being gay are investigated, and private statements made before joining the military are used to discharge soldiers who have never disclosed their sexuality while in the military.
Brian Rose says
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: this stupid, ignorant law does nothing to protect soldiers and keeps people like me from joining the military.
Ron says
This policy saves lives. How can you concentrate on battle when you are more concerned with the status of you significant other the next platoon over?
I support this policy the same way I support not having women in combat roles. It is not because of discrimination but because they are a distraction to the majority and people could die.
Brian Rose says
Of course, it’s tough to concentrate when your significant other is on another portion of the battlefield. Or when you’re thinking about family back home. Or when your commanding officer has just fallen next to you after being shot. Or when bombs are exploding all around you.
There are always distractions no matter where you are or what your sexuality might be. We should rely on training to enable soldiers to concentrate on the battlefield. Besides, denying tens of thousands of people the right to be gay based solely on the speculation that they may have a relationship with another soldier is a severe misrepresentation of the soldier life, gay or not. Just because you are a gay soldier doesn’t mean you’re actively going to pursue only Army men for a relationship.
At the very least, I ask you to present some sort of evidence that being in love with someone in your unit hampers your ability to perform your duty. I doubt the existence of a study that would support your claim that DADT saves more lives than it destroys.
elgato says
First off, I’m currently in the military, but anything I say isn’t intended to be the “voice of the military” on this topic. This is my personal beliefs and thoughts.
Per the Washington Post article on the topic:
There’s been a significantly larger dollar figure spent on those who left due to weight or pregnancies, so yes, there’s been a financial loss due to Congress’s “Don’t ask, Don’t tell” policy imposed on the Pentagon but it’s minor compared to other conditions that force someone out of the military.
I think the American people and the military need to decide where sexuality plays into military life. I think we also need to decide where sexuality fits into civilian life, too. Perhaps the military could lead the way as it did with race relations.
In my opinion, you are a person in a uniform. I don’t give a rat’s ass what you think is erotic or your religion or your race, as long as you get the mission done.
That’s just me. There are millions of others in the military and their values and belief systems have to be factored in, too.
Mark says
You’re making a big leap there. There’s a difference between letting open homosexuals join the military and letting soldiers persue sexual relationships with each other. Sex between soldiers of opposite gender is already forbidden. No one is suggesting that homosexual soldiers be permitted to have sex with other soldiers. Frankly, it’s insulting to suggest, as many have done, that they wouldn’t be able to refrain from such activity.
And frankly, I don’t quite buy the position that the policy should be dictated by what’s best for the military, especially if you’re only concerned with the short term effects. The same arguments that are today made about integration of homosexuals into the military are the same ones made about integration of black Americans into the military. Does that mean we shouldn’t have done that? No, sometimes the short term interests of the military need to be pushed aside in favor of our country’s long term interests. There are homosexuals who are willing and able to defend our (and their) country. It’s un-American to deny them that chance merely because of their sexual orientation.
elgato says
Mark, you talk about the short term needs of the military vs. long term interests of the country. The military integrated racially quicker and earlier than most American civilian society. I’m interested if that took place after a Congressional mandate or if it was Pentagon policy first. Does anyone know the answer to that?
Mark says
Elgato,
Congress would have likely opposed it in 1948. Harry Truman imposed it with Executive Order 9981.
Sphagnum says
The fact that this policy has cost such-and-such dollars is useless to contemplate unless you have an equal study of what it would cost the military WITHOUT this policy. If the military relaxed it’s rules and allowed open homosexuality, how much time would be lost dealing with all the implications? How many soliders would leave (at least in part) due to disguist with other soldiers? I don’t pretend to know the answer, but you can’t flaunt this number around as though that would be “money in our pockets” if this rule was changed without also looking into the opposite effects…
Anonymous Soldier says
Spoken like someone who’s never been to combat or served.
Brian Rose says
Soldiers wouldn’t be allowed to leave out of “disgust” – joining the military places you in a legally binding contract, and failing to adhere to the antidiscrimination rules presented in new legislation will result in punishment. If a soldier chooses to leave, it would be desertion and he would be imprisoned.
The same argument was used before other countries authorized open homosexuality in their military ranks and after everything was said and done, virtually none of the fears came to pass. Furthermore, I know several men and women scattered throughout the military branches who are very open with their homosexuality, and their comrades have no problem with it.
Discrimination of many outweighs the fear of a few, and it is only right to allow gays to be themselves while serving in the military. If a select group of soldiers have a problem with having a gay man or woman in their platoon, they are a bad representation of the freedoms are country was founded on and we’d be better off without them serving.
Sphagnum says
I meant “not re-up”, not just leave at random times.. my mistake.
And I was not arguing on behalf of those point, merely pointing out that one has to consider the fiscal downfalls of such points in order to lend creedence to this report Mark used in his post. You cannot only look at one side of the coin and say “Look! It’s costing us millions of dollars!” and neglect the otehr half of the equation…
Mark says
In that case it’s probably just a matter of how many homosexuals would join the military contrasted to how many homophobes decide not to re-up.
Could go either way… no one can say for sure.
Well said. Our soliders are, in a way, representatives of our country. For people in Iraq and Afghanistan, this may be the only contact with real Americans that they’ve ever had. The soldiers who treated prisoners as hazing props in Iraq were poor representatives of our country. Likewise with the kind of person who would leave the military because it allowed blacks, women, gays, etc.
Ron says
More accurately, that was spoken like someone who has seem someone discharged for sexual orientation, and agreed with that decision.
False Hero says
I don’t believe that a homosexual preference would make a difference to the way a soldier would carry his role. With the comments made earlier regarding a “significant other in a different platoon” resulting in ineptitude and death. That’s just a presumption based on binary sexuality. I concur with Elgato’s comment that it isn’t relevant to your servitude. To say that homosexual preferred men will be “involved” erotically with the men they are working with is a bit presumptuous – that’s almost like saying that a man will be thinking of boobs and or his wife back home. It’s rather inappropriate when you are in the middle of gunfire. In addition, the bonds between men in the military are of high importance, you need to be around men you respect and trust. I feel this is where some tension lies as this is the area where the Platonic can blur into the erotic. Homosexual men don’t see every single man as a sexual interest. Perhaps the dilemma of homosexuals working in the military still pivots on masculinity itself, men are afraid of being rendered passive by other males “looking” at them in the showers and dispel “gays” as not being man enough to carry out a military regime, for all homosexual men are seen as effete – despite that most of them have asserted themselves into military positions along other “real men” denotes otherwise.
Erik says
I have nothing against them but when you are to sleep next bed to him I would afraid to close my eyes. This is to protect normal people.
Lauren Glenn says
Well….. to all you men who say that you wouldn’t allow homosexuals in the army and would kick out existing ones, guess what? Pretty soon there will be a great shortage of soldiers fighting in a war and they’ll have to initiate a draft. All the gay guys over here will still be alive, but you’ll end up dying for your country when you don’t want to and they’ll be here instead of where they want to be.
It’s a stupid argument, just like gay marriage. We set up “Civil Unions” to give them the “same rights,” but they’re not the same. Separate But Equal didn’t work for African Americans in the 60’s either. Now we have straight couples wanting to have Civil Unions because it’s a better alternative to divorce…. We set up this whole system, but then deny them basic rights such as spousal priviledge, legal rights to property or pensions after death, the right to see their significant other when they’re dying in the hospital, etc…. It would just be much easier to let them get married and/or serve in combat. We’ll have to wait until the current generation in power dies off before any of these changes are made.
To all those of you against gay marriage….. it used to be illegal for interracial marriages too…..
Cheyenne says
There isn’t a reason to keep gays out of the military except for prejudice. Erik’s comment above (“I have nothing against them but when you are to sleep next bed to him I would afraid to close my eyes. This is to protect normal people.”) just shows his own ignorance. A predator gay man would be just as dangerous as a predator straight – they’d just have different targets. And there’s a lot more straight predators than gay ones.
There’s all kinds of reasons that this policy is wrong. There’s this blog entry, which also talks about how unfair it all is, too. (Doesn’t talk about the pricetag, though.)
Rob Lundey says
Everyone keeps complaining about the money it costs our military when gays are removed. What nobody has yet said is that if these homos, who know the rules would obide by the law, then they would not join the military, therefore saving us this “363 million dollars.” What would be the difference between a gay man staying in a bunker with a bunch of other men and taking showers with a bunch of other men and a stright man being placed in bunkers with only women and taking showers with women? Why is this not legal. It is not legal because women would be offended at a man seeing them under certain condions. By the same token, I am offended by a gay man seeing me under those same conditions.
Mark says
Yes, how dare they want to serve this country.
What you’re overlooking is that in many cases the people ejected were not being openly homosexual… the military actively looked for evidence of homosexuality (that’d be in violation of the “don’t ask” part).
Peter Wartmark says
NO GAYS IN THE MILITARY EVER!
WHY SHOULD WE WAIST OUR PRESSION GAY GUYS IN USELESS WARS,
SAVE THEY GAY GUYS
KILL THE STRAIGHT (IF YOU NEE TO KILL ANYONE!!!!!!!!)
shame on the corrupted states of America!
Kevin says
As a young man I am toying around with my sexuality and am looking at the possibility of homosexuality (not sure yet). I am also very heavily interested in the Navy, I want to be an officer and go through ROTC. It’s a family tradition. Now I know that the Navy is short a couple thousand officers so Navy, I ask you this, will you keep a much needed, valued officer out of you service because he shows interest in his own gender? The choice is yours. Which is more important.
Kevin says
I have nothing against them but when you are to sleep next bed to him I would afraid to close my eyes. This is to protect normal people.
Wait wait wait. Normal people? HAHA I don’t think so. I live in a little suburban town with a mom a dad a sister a dog and a 2 story house. I get descent grades in school and I hang out with friends. BUT because I like guys and I’m a guy I’m not normal? Riiiight. And why is that whenever a ignorant person sees someone gay they think “holy crap this guys going to ask me out or kiss me”, it doesn’t work like that. You wouldn’t go up and randomly kiss a chick, we don’t randomly kiss guys. We don’t ponce on you just because you sleep in the next bunk over. Hell, theres a good chance we’re not even attracted to you. Just because we’re gay doesn’t mean we lost our manners. Duh.
sevinski101 says
being gay is against the UCMJ article 125 and if it were to be re-written it would cost millions to reorganize barracks. each homosexual member would have to have thier own room in basic and tech. school and in the barracks at their base. its not feasable and unconstitutional!
Susie Q says
Lets be real people. A person’s lifestye does not control his/her conduct on their job. Get real people…what you do is just as personal as the next person. If a person can do a job and do it well. What does their sexual preference have to do with their profession? As long as the individual keep their lifestyle to themselves and not force upon others their beliefs you people need to get a life and leave gays alone.