In 1993, President Clinton signed into law the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy for the United States military. Now President Obama wants to get rid of this common-sense piece of legislation—at the very time when our military is benefiting from it the most.
The ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy simply states: “The presence in the armed forces of persons who demonstrate a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts would create an unacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability.”
This policy essentially recognizes that military life is different from civilian life. In civilian life, we put a focus on the individual; military life is exactly the opposite—focusing instead on having a unified fighting force. In a time of war, this concept is especially important, and ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ does a great job upholding this concept by 1) Prohibiting soldiers from asking fellow soldiers if they’re gay; and 2) Prohibiting gay soldiers from ‘coming out.’
In short, lifting this policy would only create disunity in the military; it would put the desires of a small few (the gay community) over the military’s need to function as a unified force. Standards of conduct are in place for a good reason, and repealing ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ would lower that standard on behalf of a political agenda.
It’s unfortunate that President Obama as Commander-in-Chief of the military is more concerned about rewarding the radical homosexual groups that helped get him elected, and less concerned about winning the War on Terror.
