Don’t Ask / Don’t Tell – A Penalty of Status

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A status crime is a crime of being rather than a crime of doing. Examples of status crimes include addiction, homelessness, prostitution, or even belonging to a certain minority group. Included in “minority group” are gays. Laws making a person’s status criminal have been repealed and rejected nearly uniformly around the world. The simple rationale is that you can’t make a person’s very being a criminal act. Such a person could, theoretically, be jailed for life merely for existing. Even at their worst, those saturated in ignorance, intolerance, phobia and bigotry never made being gay a crime. Sodomy – yes, but the status of being gay – no. In recent, relatively enlightened decades most sodomy laws have been repealed. In today’s society, gay marriage and civil unions are nearly humdrum.

Nevertheless, US law prohibits any soldier who “demonstrate(s) a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts” from serving in the military. (10 U.S.C. §654) This section of the US Code prohibits gay soldiers from disclosing or talking about their sexual preference, i.e., don’t tell. It also prohibits superior officers from initiating an investigation into a soldier’s sexual orientation in the absence of the disallowed behavior (the homosexual acts thing), although mere suspicion of being gay can be sufficient to investigate, i.e., don’t ask.

The penalty for violating section 654, i.e., being gay, is discharge from the armed forces. An unsuccessful challenge to the disposition of an investigation results in the soldier being dishonorably discharged from the armed forces.

We have a successful volunteer army. Under DADT a gay soldier may remain at his chosen job only if he denies his being. Those who choose not to live that way are fired. Losing one’s job for reasons of economic, financial conditions is experienced by far too many due to fallout from the struggling economy. A gay soldier loses his job for being gay, not for any other reason. That is not fallout; that is a penalty for status. That gay soldier is being deprived of his livelihood as a penalty for being gay.

Gays serving openly in the military is a non-issue in most Western armed forces. Really. Polling in the US shows that both private citizens and servicemen are in favor of gays serving openly in the military. (The web is replete with supportive data.) Standing in the way of the uptight, puritanical US of A joining more socially sophisticated societies are sexually hung-up generals and legislators whose panties are too tight to let go of age-old bigotry, fear and ignorance. They would rather sacrifice American lives in battle than, let’s say, utilize highly skilled Arabic translators (who happen to be gay) to obtain accurate intelligence. Please see the hundreds of online articles about First Lieutenant Daniel Choi, who came out on the “Rachel Maddow Show”.

A 2007 study by the University of California recommended that the US follow Israel’s example on gays in the military. What would that be? In a nutshell by David Saranga former IDF officer and Israel’s consul for media and public affairs in New York:

"It's a non-issue... You can be a very good officer, a creative one, a brave one and be gay at the same time."

Case closed.

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