When Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was drafted and then later became law, it was seen as a liberal and progressive policy. This policy today may not seem liberal or progressive, but for the time it was perceived as that when President Bill Clinton signed this legislation in 1993. This policy, like many other polices, received backlash from both sides of the political spectrum along with military leaders, as they feared that the “mere presence of homosexuals in the armed forces would undermine morale”. Despite the very mixed feelings about this policy it was law for 18 years until President Obama with the votes of Congress officially repealed the policy on December 22, 2010. With good arguments for both sides one may ask why President Obama would
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Before Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, in the 1980s alone nearly 17,000 service members were discharged solely because of their sexual orientation. This is a significant amount of soldiers who were discharged before the policy was implemented, but even after the policy went into effect there were still a lot of discharges in the armed forces on the basis of sexuality: “Within 15 years of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell there were more than 12,000 officers who had been discharged for refusing to disclose their homosexuality.” This policy was ineffective in finding a compromise between military readiness and equality as the number of discharges due to homosexuality did not change greatly as in 10 years there were about 17,000 total service members that were discharged while after in 15 years there was 12,000 officers alone. These numbers are staggering and one can assume that there were many great leaders and soldiers that would have proved to be beneficial to the military. The anti-homosexual view to the scenario would say that the military’s effectiveness was hindered, but a study done by the Department of Defense suggested that a repeal of the policy would have a low risk and the DoD had “provid(ed) education and training to service members” in order to make for a seamless transition. It is clear that Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell had a negative impact strategically on the military, but it also went against some of our core values as
Before Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, in the 1980s alone nearly 17,000 service members were discharged solely because of their sexual orientation. This is a significant amount of soldiers who were discharged before the policy was implemented, but even after the policy went into effect there were still a lot of discharges in the armed forces on the basis of sexuality: “Within 15 years of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell there were more than 12,000 officers who had been discharged for refusing to disclose their homosexuality.” This policy was ineffective in finding a compromise between military readiness and equality as the number of discharges due to homosexuality did not change greatly as in 10 years there were about 17,000 total service members that were discharged while after in 15 years there was 12,000 officers alone. These numbers are staggering and one can assume that there were many great leaders and soldiers that would have proved to be beneficial to the military. The anti-homosexual view to the scenario would say that the military’s effectiveness was hindered, but a study done by the Department of Defense suggested that a repeal of the policy would have a low risk and the DoD had “provid(ed) education and training to service members” in order to make for a seamless transition. It is clear that Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell had a negative impact strategically on the military, but it also went against some of our core values as