California Senate Calls for End to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”
The California State Senate passed a resolution yesterday calling for an end to “don’t ask, don’t tell”, the colloquial name for the federal law which bans openly gay men and women from service in the military. The Palm Springs Desert Sun is reporting that the resolution passed 23-16.
The ban, signed into law in 1993, has been controversial since day one. It prohibits military members from engaging in homosexual acts, marrying or attempting to marry, or making statements about their homosexuality – essentially anything that would make known their sexual orientation. In the event a member is found to have violated the policy, the result, absent any accompanying criminal allegations, is typically discharge with an honorable characterization of service.
Opponents claim the law is unlawfully discriminatory and argue that men and women should be able to serve their country without regard to sexual orientation. They also point to the costs, in time, money and experience, of discharging trained military members in the midst of two wars.
Supporters argue that allowing openly gay service members would be detrimental to unit cohesion and is an attempt at social engineering in the military.
As a practical matter, when I was a JAG advising commanders on what to do in these cases under the law, I found the administrative guidance implementing “don’t ask, don’t tell” to be quite cumbersome. The regulations almost seemed to have an implicit bias against further inquiry, or at least in favor of carefully controlling the inquiry. In most cases, there was much “adult” supervision and approval required before any further investigative steps could be taken on an allegation (”Adult” in this context being defined as someone with three or four stars on his or her shoulders). So, despite being (usually) administrative in nature, there was more supervision involved in these cases than, by contrast, in a routine criminal investigation.
While President Obama campaigned on repealing the law, he has not yet taken affirmative steps to do so since taking office.
As California goes…? We shall see.
