ROBERT BURNS
AP National Security Writer
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama may get his wish to allow gays to serve openly in the U.S. military – not because of his powers of persuasion but because arguments against it have lost traction over time.
A cultural shift since Congress passed a legal ban nearly a generation ago has changed the debate.
For many younger members of the military – those doing the bulk of the fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq – it’s hardly a debate at all. Polls show they care little about sexual orientation in their ranks.
Views in the wider society have evolved; gay marriage is now legal in five states and Washington, D.C. Opinion surveys say a majority of Americans think it’s OK for gays to serve in uniform.
Jason Jonas, a 28-year-old former Army staff sergeant said he knew of openly gay soldiers in his intelligence unit at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, but their orientation never affected unit morale.
“I don’t think it is anybody’s right to say who can and who can’t fight for their country,” said Jonas, who served in Afghanistan before being injured. He is no longer in the Army. “Nobody cares.”
It will not go unnoticed among military members that their most senior uniformed leader, Adm. Mike Mullen, told a Senate panel Tuesday that he personally believes it is time to allow gays to serve openly. It’s just wrong, Mullen said, that gays must “lie about who they are” to defend their country.
Congress enacted the law that enshrined in 1993 the so-called “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which was intended to soften the previous blanket prohibition on gays in the military. “Don’t ask” says gays may serve so long as they kept their sexuality private. Gay rights organizations have called that an insult and have said it is a form of discrimination.
Although Obama said he would work to change the law this year, Defense Secretary Robert Gates gave him some extra leeway by telling Congress the Pentagon would need at least a year to implement the changes. Gates’ comment gave the impression that he thinks repeal is almost inevitable, although a leading Republican voice on defense matters, Sen. John McCain, opposes the change.
“I fully support the president’s decision,” Gates said. “The question before us is not whether the military prepares to make this change, but how we best prepare for it,” adding that the final decision rests with Congress.
In the meantime, Gates said he is seeking latitude in how the law is enforced, and there are indications that the military already is honoring the ban mostly in the breach.
According to figures released Monday, the Defense Department last year dismissed the fewest number of service members for violating the policy than it had in more than a decade. The 2009 figure – 428 – was sharply lower than the 2008 total of 619.
Overall, more than 10,900 troops have been discharged under the policy.
The list of countries that permit gays to serve openly in uniform has grown to 28, including Canada, Israel, Australia and most of Europe. Many of those nations have troops fighting alongside U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, and Mullen said in his testimony Tuesday that he has seen no indication that the different policy on gays by the allies in Afghanistan has hurt the war effort.
Yet in the U.S., there remains a powerful rhetorical weapon for opponents of lifting the ban – fear that it would weaken a military at war.
It’s a question that cuts to the heart of why sexual orientation has been such a sensitive topic in the military in the past – and remains so among those who see repeal of the ban on allowing gays to serve openly as putting still more stress on a military already under strain from years of conflict.
Mullen said he shares that concern, even as he became the first sitting chairman of the Joint Chiefs to publicly advocate allowing gays to serve openly. He told the Senate Armed Services Committee “there will be some disruption in the force” if the law is changed and it will add to the military’s burdens.
“Our plate is very full” already, he said.
Obama entered the White House as an advocate of repealing the ban, but he let it rest for a year. Last week, in his State of the Union address, he vowed to work with Congress this year “to finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are.”
When President Bill Clinton took office in 1993, he ignited a political firestorm by trying to use his executive powers to end the policy – not written into law at that point – of discriminating against gay service members in the military.
In the 1993 statute is language that supporters of the status quo say justifies limiting the rights of gays to serve. It calls the military a “specialized society” in which life is “fundamentally different from civilian life.” And so it is. But the cultural differences are not necessarily as stark as in 1993.
Walter Slocombe, a defense consultant who was a senior policy officer in the Pentagon during most of the Clinton administration, says the current ban is wrong and can be changed without major disruptions.
Most military members “won’t care one way or another,” he said in an interview, although it should not be overlooked that all branches of the military struggle to some extent with racial, religious and gender tensions.
“That’s a result of having a military that reflects the diversity of the country,” he said.
___
EDITOR’S NOTE – Robert Burns has covered national security and military affairs for The Associated Press since 1990.