Dumping Don't Ask, Don't Tell?

Appeared in the Good Times Newsweekly

Tuesday, 3 July 2007

By Assemblymember John Laird

The discussion over gay rights in the state legislature is changing in tone and content, and a debate last week about the military’s infamous “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell ” policy is the latest example.

This policy, introduced in 1993 by President Clinton, and crafted by then-Joint Chief of Staff Chairman Colin Powell, is being debated in Congress. Last week on the Assembly floor, I presented Sen. Christine Kehoe’s resolution calling on Congress and President Bush to support H.R. 1246, which would end the policy.

Since the policy began, 11,000 soldiers have been discharged, including more than 1,100 in critical positions such as counterintelligence, medical specialists and language specialists, hard-to-find Arabic and Farsi translators.

We have a local connection to the language specialists, as Monterey is home to their training facility, the Defense Language Institute. Losing translators is a particular outrage, since there’s already a dramatic shortage of Arabic translators at the front lines, and soldiers rely on translators for their personal safety. Soldiers in Iraq are fighting side by side with the British, who are fine with openly gay soldiers. The British understand their world hasn’t ended with soldiers serving openly—and Americans agree, with an overwhelming majority in recent polls supporting repealing this policy. Former Marine Staff Sergeant Eric Alva was the first casualty in Iraq, losing his leg to a landmine. But he says he was more worried about being found out as gay than he was about his personal safety in Iraq.

Opposition to the Assembly resolution centered around “micromanaging the military.” But calling for a repeal of this policy is totally different than weighing in on how many bullets should be budgeted or how much training soldiers should receive—as critics said in the Assembly debate. This kind of discussion is one of the most important things we do in a democracy.

If gays serving openly in the military is good enough for 26 other countries and over 70 percent of the American people in the latest poll, and if open service allows troops to be safer in Iraq because they have translators to help ensure safety—then this is exactly the kind of public policy worthy of discussion in our state legislature.

The resolution in the Assembly passed 43-29, and will now be sent to Congress, as well as President Bush and each house in every state legislature. Let’s hope Congress and President Bush listen—just as so many legislators did respectfully during our civil debate on the Assembly floor.