In Brief: End DADT Now

From February 2010 eNews (Vol.7, No. 2)

We are impatient – for good reason. For Lambda Legal, "Don't Ask Don’t Tell" (DADT) is and always has been a national outrage and a focal point of our work. When we represented Colonel Margarethe Cammermeyer 18 years ago, DADT wasn't even on the books yet. But for decades before DADT was established in 1994, countless men and women who put their lives on the line saw their commitment and sacrifice — not to mention those of their families — reduced to a cruel dismissal because of fear, ignorance and prejudice.

Cammermeyer dedicated 27 years of service to the U.S. Army and National Guard and won a Bronze Star for her service in Vietnam. None of this mattered when she was discharged for being a lesbian. Happily, Lambda Legal won a federal court ruling that the pre-DADT ban on gays in the military was unconstitutional. The court ordered that Cammermeyer be reinstated.

DADT was passed during the administration of another president who campaigned, in part, as a friend to the LGBT community. Since DADT, the U.S. military, our nation's largest employer, has discharged over 13,000 more men and women for being gay.

Last Tuesday, our nation's top two defense officials, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, urged Congress to repeal DADT in their testimony before a Senate panel. Both said a Pentagon review examining the effects of repeal on the military, which could take a year, would be required before Congress could vote on the matter. But a 1993 RAND corporation study, which Gates asked be updated, already found that openness toward gay service-members would work if the policy had support from the military’s highest levels of leadership.

We're encouraged by President Obama's call for the repeal of DADT in his State of the Union address, but dismayed about the proposed pace of change. How many more dedicated gay and lesbian servicemembers will our country lose this year under a policy we know is wrong? The United States must no longer stand alone among the world's leading democracies in forcing gay men and lesbians to sacrifice an essential freedom — to be themselves — so that the rest of our nation may enjoy its rights and protections. The time to repeal DADT is now.