Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell…Yet

President Bill Clinton’s enactment of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy on homosexuality has been criticized by a lot of gay rights supporters on the grounds that it requires gays to stay in the closet if they want to stay in the military.

I always felt this was a little unfair because “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was a lot better than the previous military policy, which might be characterized as “Ask, then Discharge” (or before that, “Investigate, then Imprison”). A gay person wanting to serve in the military before 1993 could only do so by lying when questioned about it. Now at least they weren’t supposed to be questioned. Clinton’s new policy may have required gays to stay in the closet, but the old policy used to pull them out of the closet even if they were willing to stay in.

It turns out there may be another advantage to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” that I didn’t even think of (but should have):

Last year I held a number of meetings with gay soldiers and marines, including some with combat experience in Iraq, and an openly gay senior sailor who was serving effectively as a member of a nuclear submarine crew. These conversations showed me just how much the military has changed, and that gays and lesbians can be accepted by their peers.

This perception is supported by a new Zogby poll of more than 500 service members returning from Afghanistan and Iraq, three quarters of whom said they were comfortable interacting with gay people. And 24 foreign nations, including Israel, Britain and other allies in the fight against terrorism, let gays serve openly, with none reporting morale or recruitment problems.

I now believe that if gay men and lesbians served openly in the United States military, they would not undermine the efficacy of the armed forces. Our military has been stretched thin by our deployments in the Middle East, and we must welcome the service of any American who is willing and able to do the job.

That’s from a New York Times op-ed column. The writer is retired Army General John M. Shalikashvili, a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Before “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” people who opposed gays in the military could claim that it might undermine the moral, discipline, and efficiency of the United States military, and that it was foolish to conduct social experiments in such a vital institution. What “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” did was allow us to conduct that experiment. Gays could serve in the military and then come out of the closet so we knew who they were.

One benefit of this was information: After a decade and a half of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” the results of the experiment are in. Gay soldiers don’t have problems serving in the military, and the straight soliders don’t have problems serving with the gay soldiers.

I think this will bring an end to the military’s opposition to gays in the service, and Congress will follow their lead. It may not have happened as soon as it could have, but I think it will happen.

(Hat tip: Ronald Bailey)