Sanchez: Don’t just stand there; kill this military policy

By Mary Sanchez

The troops' silence is telling.

If only the timid members of Congress and the nation's top do-gooders would stop squawking about “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” long enough to absorb the message.

Several weeks have passed since the top military chief factually spoke about the many gays and lesbians in military service, present and past.

Navy Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, sat before a Congressional committee and admitted the obvious: Gays are serving. They always have served, and everybody knows it.

So the time for repealing the unnecessary policy of the last 16 years has arrived. To do so, Mullen professed to a Congressional committee in February, would be “the right thing to do.”

Since that display of honesty, Mullen has held three town hall style meetings with Army, Air Force and Marines in attendance. Not one soldier has reportedly raised the issue.

Not one.

The reason is that, finally, a top military official simply told the truth about gays and lesbians who are also soldiers, sailors and pilots.

“I have served with homosexuals since 1968,” Mullen said. “Everybody in the military has, and we understood that.”

The venerable Colin Powell has followed suit, saying, “Attitudes and circumstances have changed.”

That would include his own. For much of his storied military career, Powell held to idea that sexual orientation was somehow different from other benign characteristics such as race and gender that the military had found a way to look past.

And Defense Secretary Robert Gates also chimed in, noting that arguments about if gays and lesbians will openly serve are moot. The issue is when Congress officially will change the policy.

But now, instead of listening, the White House is shuffling along even more slowly, awaiting yet another Pentagon study of the policy that is expected to take a year to complete. Guess President Barack Obama didn't really mean his State of the Union promise to end Don't Ask Don't Tell this year.

The continuing tepid approach creates a void for those who always will be opposed, including influential conservative groups. An outfit called the Center for Military Readiness is organizing conservative groups to oppose any effort to permit openly gay and lesbian people from serving in the armed forces.

Our military leaders seem ready to acknowledge that gay and lesbian soldiers are fighting valiantly alongside straight soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. As Mullen admitted, people often know who is gay and who is straight. And the military hasn't imploded upon itself. The much discussed undercutting of morale and unit cohesion hasn't happened.

So with that old argument no longer credible, it is those who continue to support Don't Ask, Don't Tell who must justify how this policy serves to improve military readiness. It doesn't have a leg to stand on.

In coming weeks, other top military leaders are expected to add their opinions before Congress. Gen. George Casey is expected to argue that, with two wars being fought, this is no time to handle the logistical burden of officially lifting the ban.

If he makes the argument, I'd like to hear someone on Capitol Hill query how he reconciles that belief with the reality that his straight troops know they serve alongside gay people now.

The silence of his reply would be telling.

n Comments: msanchez@

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