What was “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and why did it face a lot of backlash from the LGBTQ+ community?
In: 920
Don’t ask, don’t tell was a policy that was meant to protect homosexual people so they could enter the army force or the Navy and they were not allowed to ask about your sexual status.
But the problem was you had that hide that side of you because if they found out or even suspected you were gay, they could still discharge you. That meant you could never pursue a relationship or you had to hide your partner from them and pretend they were your friend or room mate. If you and your “friend” or your “room mat” came with you to every event or outing with your other friends, this was a dead giveaway you were gay.
It did not face a lot of backlash from the LGBT community (as it was known then) because this was intended to be an improvement.
Prior to DADT gays in the service could just be hunted out. DADT was supposed to stop that, and in theory gay men and lesbians could serve as long as they didn’t bring up being gay.
I don’t think people who were not cognizant back then can appreciate how long and hard we worked for each step toward making things better. They probably seem like undignified compromises now, but even though we understood the underlying unfairness we still had to take the improvements we *could* get to get closer to fairness.
Here’s a pretty good article that speaks of the ramifications of [DADT](https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1185790941).
TL;DR like you’re 5 version?
“Gay people can serve in the military as long as they stay the hell in the closet. If we ever find out you’re gay we’re throwing your ass out and you’re not getting any of your benefits.”
It faced “backlash” because telling gay people they have to hide their sexuality, relationships, and personal life while heterosexual servicemembers can be open about their sexuality, relationships, and personal life is an idiotic double-standard that’s bad for morale and bad for security (someone finds out you’re gay they can easily blackmail you: “Do what I want or I’ll tell your CO and they’ll have to investigate and get rid of you!”)
There are a lot of other reasons it was stupid and wrong, but the fact that it was bad for *everyone* ***AND*** *the military itself* is the reason so many folks were outspoken about it being bad policy.
It was the equivalent desegregating the services by saying “Black soldiers can serve alongside white soldiers as long as they wear white-people-skin-tone makeup and never tell anyone they’re actually Black. If we find out we’re throwing them out.”
Before DADT, disclosure of your sexual preference was required for military service. Lying about it *could* (but rarely did) wind you up in jail, but routinely wound up with you being booted. How bad the boot was changed on a variety of circumstances (length of service, disposition of CO, flagrancy, etc – in short, it was very subjective). Commanders could and would pursue investigations into people suspected of being homesexual. and of those known not to be, but that the commanders wanted out of the military for whatever reason.
When DADT went into effect, it was, as many have pointed out, a compromise. It did not receive the grassroots backlash that people seem to think it did, but vocal minorities in the LBGT and Conservative communities were against it (how’s that for irony?), while the rank and file were mostly “What? Why bother – we already know and we really don’t care, as long as they do the job and don’t try to pick *us* up”. As with all complicated things, there were extremists on both sides, of course. DADT(DP) ended the Commanders’ witch hunts (mostly), provided extremely minimal protections for the military LGBT community, enhanced recruitment efforts, and was considered a baby step forward for overall LGBT rights. But baby steps were all that were politically expedient at the time.
The repeal of DADT – something not often talked about – was a dangerous situation, in that it was always possible that it could have been a true repeal – meaning that the laws and regulations would go back to how they were in the 80s: witch hunts and service denials all around. Soldiers were advised that if they were not out of the closet at the time, that they should remain in the closet until the fallout of the repeal was more widely understood. Fortunately, things did not go that route, and civil rights for military LGBTs have improved in the intervening time, but it was much scarier at that point than most people realize.
Source: personal experience. I was there for it all.
So, I grew up in a very conservative house/area, and I’ll give a little of the counter perspective.
(My views are now very different).
Conservatives *hated* DADA. It was “social experiments with the military”, “extreme pro-homosexual agenda”, etc.
In reality, it was a compromise and pro-gay groups are right now to call it out as not enough, but at the time it was a huge step forward.
It went from “this person is evil at their core and unfit to be an American” to “this person is fit to be an American, but only if they outwardly conform.” That’s still bad, but it makes people who are on the far side have to confront and alter their worldviews.
Also, exposure is one of the best weapons against prejudice. I don’t know what my views would be today if I hadn’t met and become good friends with gay people at my job.
Was DADA enough? No. Was it a huge step in the right direction that doesn’t get enough credit today? Also yes, imo.
Lots of people have nailed most of what DADT was, but missed the the political part.
This was at a point in time where the religious right was taking hold of the Republican party, but there were still pockets of resistance to it.
Barry Goldwater; noted conservative, former Senator, and ’64 Republican POTUS nominee, famously wrote a letter to the New York Times in ’93 comparing gays in the military to racial segregation in the military, and it was only a matter of time before it ends, and it should end now along with “You don’t have to be straight, to shoot straight”
https://www.nytimes.com/1993/06/11/us/goldwater-backs-gay-troops.html
The problem is newly elected President Clinton was from a “new” wing of Democratic party called the Democratic Leadership Conference, and espoused the ideas of the Third Way.
In practice, that meant running away from the ideas of the New Left Democratic party, and focusing on middle-class whites, free-market capitalism, eliminating government intervention, “mainstream” values, balanced budgets, tough on crime policy, and triangulation.
Now, if you’re saying to yourself “that sounds quite a bit like the Republican party pre-religious right” you would be correct. And that’s where triangulation comes in to basically speed run the process.
>In politics, triangulation is a strategy associated with U.S. president Bill Clinton in the 1990s. The politician presents a position as being above or between the left and right sides (or “wings”) of a democratic political spectrum. It involves adopting for oneself some of the ideas of one’s political opponent. The logic behind it is that it both takes credit for the opponent’s ideas, and insulates the triangulator from attacks on that particular issue.
Clinton and the Democrats basically start staking a 80’s compassionate conservative position, and the loud religious right start staking their bigoted religious based positions. DADT was basically taking the most sane right-wing Republican idea, and shining it up because it was “better than before”, and attaching it to the Democrats.
The other issue is that it marginalized whatever Republicans were left that recognized it as an issue of equality and bigotry and legitimized many who were against gays in the military altogether.
You can draw a line between this and some other Clinton bills/initiatives for not only fracturing the current Democratic party, but creating the environment for the continued radicalization of the Republican party.
If you see DADT as the Democratic party legitimizing bigotry of homosexuals in the military, that’s something that is going to receive backlash.
The problem was with the ‘don’t tell’ part of the wording. It didn’t just correlate to work environments. If a gay marine went to the beach and kissed his boyfriend, and the lieutenant was out with his family that same day and saw it, that was considered ‘telling’. Once the higher up knew, there were no laws to stop discrimination from that point forward. So gay service men and women needed to be closeted in all forms of their life, not just ‘at the office’.
It ultimately was a half measure trying to appease conservatives by the same time trying to show that Clinton was a big fan of the LGBT to get their vote but ultimately it screwed people over and then address the core issue.
I served in the Army during DADT. Units still used the rumor mill to punish and discharge soldiers even SUSPECTED of being gay. Soldiers who had same-sex relationships were constantly being broken up and transferred elsewhere. No benefits, no death benefits, no housing, no visitation. If you knew a soldier who was gay, and you liked them, you KEPT YOUR MOUTH FUCKING SHUT. And that’s not even talking about the culture of systemic rape against queer servicemembers. What are they gonna do, report it?
Oh and Iraq? Literally every porta-shitter you went in to, on ANY US base? DOZENS of e-mail addresses scrawled out in Sharpie, advertising M4M. Clinton really thought he was doing some thing to strike a compromise, when really, he was a triangulating piece of shit who gave official cover to what was already a barbaric set of practices.
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