Even in a time of war, even when military recruiting is hurting, the [tag]Pentagon[/tag] is still discharging patriotic, physically-fit, well-trained volunteers from the armed forces — because they’re [tag]gay[/tag]. What’s worse, the discharge rate is going up, just when we need those soliders most.
The number of military members [tag]discharge[/tag]d under the Pentagon’s “[tag]don’t ask, don’t tell[/tag]” policy on homosexuals rose by 11% last year, the first increase since 2001, officials said Wednesday.
A Pentagon spokeswoman, Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke, said 726 service members were discharged under the policy during the 2005 budget year that ended Sept. 30. That compares with 653 discharges the year before. She released the figures after a gay rights group said it had obtained the statistics on its own.
Have I mentioned lately how “don’t ask, don’t tell” not only undermines [tag]military[/tag] [tag]readiness[/tag], but also costs taxpayers a fortune? And that many of the discharged service members held critical jobs in the military, including troops in fields such as military intelligence, battleground medicine, and linguistics?
It’s worth noting, of course, that there’s still a congressional effort to undo the policy. At this point, the bi-partisan effort to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is up to 115 co-sponsors in the House — including four House Republicans. There’s also a renewed drive to bring the issue up in the Senate.
A WaPo editorial from March still rings true.
The real problem, which [the Solomon Amendment] has tended to obscure, is that the military, even while fighting two wars, continues to root out Americans who wish to help by maintaining a policy that bars anyone who is openly gay. It robs itself of much-needed talent by way of their humiliation and exposure while forcing those in uniform to hide who they are.
This would be distasteful even if their presence in the military posed some real problem. But there’s no evidence of that. A combination of bigotry and inertia keeps the gay ban in place. Now that the military has proved it can constitutionally exempt itself from university nondiscrimination rules, Congress should decide whether it really wants a military that requires such an exemption.
I realize this change won’t happen anytime soon, and Dems certainly would never make this a campaign issue. But it’s only a matter of time before this absurd and indefensible policy is thrown on the trash heap of bad ideas.