by Glenn A. LeCarl
While the furor over the anti-gay remarks by Gen. Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has subsided, a fundamental injustice of the military policy known as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT), which he clumsily exposed, remains in full force. It is one of the most troubling aspects of DADT – the oppressive silence it enforces upon all lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) service members.
Perhaps that is what makes Gen. Pace's remarks especially outrageous. His personal ignorance and prejudice, though unbecoming the leader of our increasingly diverse military, are not so much at issue as is the fact that he could express his views and those he slurred cannot.
In his now infamous interview with the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune, Gen. Pace said, "I believe that homosexual acts between individuals are immoral…," and linked an LGBT identity with the act of adultery. He went on to say that "I do not believe that the armed forces of the United States are well served by saying through our policies that it's okay to be immoral in any way." Presumably the general does not exclude bigotry from his personal moral code.
Though insulting tens of thousands of service members under his command, many of whom are combat veterans of the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, he has refused to apologize. He offered only vague regret and the acknowledgment that in the interview he should have focused "less on my personal moral views."
Being subject to such indignities, however, is nothing new for LGBT service members. Aside from the additional sacrifices uniquely required of them and their families, they must listen in silence daily while their service and humanity is officially debated and, by some like Gen. Pace, dismissed. In the post-civil rights era, no other service members can be similarly demeaned. And only LGBT service members are explicitly restricted in their freedom of speech by official military policy (DADT) beyond the normal and expected limitations required of military service.
The responses to a column I wrote for the Navy Times last year illustrate the disparity. I called upon the U.S. Naval Academy Alumni Association, the foremost organization of future, current and former navy and marine officers, to halt its obstruction of an LGBT alumni group, USNA OUT. With support for DADT's repeal steadily growing among the public, former Dept. of Defense officials, within the ranks and Congress, I argued that the alumni association must provide an example of positive leadership on the integration of out LGBT members for the future welfare of the Navy. Privately, via email, a number of navy personnel wrote in support; publicly, in a letter to the editor at the Navy Times, one sailor wrote to condemn my views. Like Gen. Pace, he was free to speak his mind. Any LGBT sailor or marine who openly expressed support would have instead faced involuntary discharge.
It is only because I am no longer in uniform that as a gay man I can challenge homophobic rhetoric and bias. I can express my views regarding DADT too: that it unfairly discriminates against LGBT service members, degrades the strength and readiness of our armed forces, and stains our nation's ideal of freedom and equality. But no matter what I say or how well I might hope to say it, my words are totally inadequate. Those we need to hear from, those who are the subject of this policy, cannot share their views or their stories or their families. They are shut out of the debate and must await justice. So in the meantime it falls to us, their allies in the LGBT and straight communities, to bring a semblance of balance to this debate.
