Don’t Ask Discharges Rise, Particularly For Women
The military’s anti-gay Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell remains a blight on our nation’s armed services. Especially for the women:
The Army and Air Force discharged a disproportionate number of women in 2007 under the “don’t ask, don’t tell†policy that prohibits openly gay people from serving in the military, according to Pentagon statistics gathered by an advocacy group.While women make up 14 percent of Army personnel, 46 percent of those discharged under the policy last year were women. And while 20 percent of Air Force personnel are women, 49 percent of its discharges under the policy last year were women.
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Over all, the number of gay men and lesbians discharged from the military in 2007 rose to 627 from 612 a year before, according to Pentagon statistics. Those figures represent a drop of about 50 percent from a peak in 2001, before the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Pentagon released the numbers after Servicemember’s Legal Defense Network invoked the dreaded Freedom Of Information Act, which forced the government to confess their disgraceful sins.
Randy Shilts long ago documented how DADT is used to abuse women in the service in his book Conduct Unbecoming, even straight women. I suspect that the enlisted personnel have no problem with gay people — it is the dinosaurs in command who are the problem.
how about kicking out all the male dont ask dont tell servicemen who are risking their lives dying and getting maimed for freedom??? never happen because bush needs all he can get!
As things are, I’d never serve. Not as long as my gayness would be mandatorily kept hush-hush.
I likely wouldn’t go around the barracks shouting about my sexuality, but that’s not really the point.
Who’s telling? Could it be that female soldiers, unhappy with the war, are taking a lesson from M.A.S.H.’s Corporal Klinger and getting the modern version of a Section 8? Are they “outing” themselves, whether they are lesbian or not, just to get out of their military commitment?
The NY Times policy of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Report” is alive and well.
I’m so tired of hearing about DADT. Damn it, if soldiers don’t like the rules of the military then don’t sign up or get out. I can’t set the rules that my Federal employer imposes on the workplace; why should soldiers be any different??? Just a thought…….
Oh yes RPCV, good line of thought. I suppose that we shouldn’t make a nuisance of ourselves. Silly gays and their wanting equality. We’re second class citizen! What were we thinking?