This paper examines the congressional repeal of the U.S. military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) policy, signed into law by President Obama in 2010 after 17 years of controversy. The paper presents both sides of the debate: supporters of repeal argued that DADT caused an unfair loss of military talent, violated principles of individual liberty drawn from John Stuart Mill, and amounted to government-sanctioned discrimination. Opponents, including Senators Lugar, Cochran, and McCain, argued that lifting the ban would undermine unit cohesion and combat effectiveness, particularly during active operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Now that the U.S. Congress has passed legislation to strike down the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) law and President Barack Obama has signed the bill, gay and lesbian service members can serve openly in the armed forces. The final U.S. Senate vote was 65–31, with eight Republicans joining 57 Democrats to secure the necessary votes after a last-ditch Republican effort to block a final vote was defeated on a 63–33 vote (Hulse, 2010). Thus, 17 years of controversy — during which thousands of gay and lesbian soldiers were forced from their jobs in the military — came to an end. This paper examines the views of those who supported keeping DADT as official U.S. policy and those who believed it amounted to "government-sanctioned discrimination that treated gay and lesbian troops as second-class citizens" (Hulse, p. 1).
The March–April issue of the journal Military Review featured an article by Lieutenant Colonel Allen Bishop, U.S. Army (Retired), who reminded readers that the ill-fated DADT was responsible for "kicking out expensive and scarce Arabic linguists because they were gay" (Bishop, 2010, p. 117). Moreover, Bishop notes that due to DADT some 12,500 persons were discharged from the military over the preceding 17 years in an unfortunate and unfair "hemorrhage of talent" that constituted "a considerable expense" (p. 117). But Bishop went further: beyond being a costly policy — training individuals only to dismiss them due to their sexual orientation — DADT was, in his view, a case of social injustice.
Bishop references John Stuart Mill's essay On Liberty, in which the 19th-century philosopher wrote that the question of "where to place the limit between individual independence and social control… is the principal question in human affairs" (Bishop quoting Mill, p. 118). Mill argued further that "the sole end for which mankind is warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number is self-protection" (p. 118). The obvious first point in Mill's framework is that Americans serving in the military do not need protection from homosexuals. The second point is that gay and lesbian service members are "citizens, and what they do in privacy is of no concern of ours so long as it does not cause us harm" (p. 119).
"Mill's liberty principle and minority rights history"
"Senators' unit cohesion and moral objections"
The repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" marked the end of 17 years of policy that supporters of repeal called discriminatory and opponents considered essential to military effectiveness. Advocates pointed to the unjust loss of trained personnel, the philosophical principles of individual liberty, and the historical precedent of other minority groups winning the right to serve fully in the armed forces. Opponents argued primarily from concerns about unit cohesion, combat readiness, and, in some cases, moral or religious grounds. The Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010 ultimately resolved the legal question, though the underlying debate reflected deeper tensions in American society over equality, military culture, and the boundaries of institutional authority.
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