The Iraq war was raging and the armed forces needed every person they could get. "When they need lesbian, gay and bisexual Americans most, military leaders keep us close at hand," said SLDN Executive Director C. Dixon Osburn. "The time has come to do away with the Pentagon’s charade and make sure no one loses his or her career at the hands of anti-gay discrimination." So gays, lesbians, and transsexuals are good enough for war -- just not fit to serve in peacetime. Or even relative peacetime.
The plain idiocy of DADT aside, the policy is theoretically one of enforced ignorance. "Don't ask, don't tell" could just as easily be expressed as "don't know, don't wanna know." And this gives DADT supporters a rhetorical advantage; they can claim that ending the policy would be allowing gays and lesbians into the military, when the truth is the the policy is designed to allow them into the military. And the advantage comes in the fact that no one in the military is in a position to contradict them. Gays can't come out and say that they're serving without risking their careers and supportive comrades can't come forward in their defense for the same reason. As a result, bigots can pretend there are no gays in the military -- or, at least, very few -- and cast repealing DADT as a drastic change... [CLICK TO READ FULL POST]
