Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Policy Halted

Ashley Chapman
Contributing Writer

“Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” a 17-year-old ban on openly gay U.S. troops, was suspended Tuesday, Oct. 12 when a federal judge issued an injunction immediately halting policy enforcement and terminating  all current discharge proceedings and open investigations under the policy.

U.S. Department of Justice attorneys have 60 days to appeal. So far, there has been no official comment made by Pentagon and justice department officials.

Van Vox, VCU student and U.S. military veteran, said the controversy surrounding homosexual soldiers is a matter of a lack of understanding of homosexuality itself.

“Its ignorance, people are afraid of what they don’t understand, so they fight it,” Vox said. “They have no idea because they’ve never experienced it. They think it’s a choice, it’s not a choice.”

Vox personally was affected by the policy in May when the military initiated an investigation after she went to an equality/gay rights rally dressed in a uniform top with “proud of who I am” written on the garment. She says she believed she had to speak out, regardless of possible consequences.

“I’m a soldier and I shouldn’t have to choose between identities,” Vox said. “When you have to do that — hide something in one setting and then be proud about it in another — it affects how good you can do at your job. It wasn’t right for me.”

Vox says she thinks there are more officials in the military who are open minded and that it’s rare to see hostility. However, military personnel were legally bound to act if there was evidence showing “homosexual misconduct.”

Vox said her commanding officer publicly reprimanded her for the uniform violation but then took her aside later and apologized for what she was going through.

“So not everybody is close minded,” Vox said. “It’s just what they had to show because of the law that was in effect.”

The new injunction will allow soldiers to be openly gay and consequences both negative and positive will follow. There will be a level of discomfort.

Bethany Ayers, VCU student and member of VCU’s Queer Action and women’s rights group Decibel, says she thinks the issue at hand is the military view of masculinity.

“The military is a culture of high masculinity and they (soldiers) feel gay men are a direct threat to that masculinity because they (soldiers) have a limited view of that homosexuality and masculinity,” Ayers said.

Vox says she thinks that the new legislation will improve soldier moral and allow for more focus on the mission and less on hiding who they are.

“It’s not just getting chaptered out (discharged), it’s completely denying who you are which is detrimental to mission readiness,” Vox said. “How are you going to be focused on that when you can’t even tell the truth about yourself?”

Since Tuesday’s ruling, Obama’s Justice Department has sought to halt the ban’s reversal, saying that immediately halting the policy would cause “a host of significant and immediate harms” to “strong and effective military operations.”

Still, Obama’s Press Secretary, Robert Gibbs, said on Sunday that Obama agrees with the court’s decision that the policy is discrimnatory. Gibbs argued that the President simply wants the law repealed by the Legislative Branch instead of the courts, in order to expedite the process.

“Don’t ask, don’t tell will end under this President,” Gibbs said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Senate Republicans, however, blocked the repeal just before Congress’ month-long recess before the November elections. This could delay the repeal of “dont ask, don’t tell,” since the midterm elections are likely to favor the GOP.

Still, Gibbs expects the appeal to happen, citing a plan “to work with the Pentagon for an orderly and disciplined transition from the law that we have now to an era that ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ doesn’t exist,” Gibbs said.