How ObamaCare Threw Gays, Immigrants under the Bus
In the wake of Senate Democrats’ inability to break a GOP filibuster of the defense appropriations bill, to which Democrats hoped to attach the pro-immigration Dream Act and a repeal of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, the Reason Foundation’s Shikha Dalmia writes in Forbes:
But if Harry Reid was the proximate cause of this bill’s demise, ObamaCare was the fundamental cause. The ugly, hardball tactics that Democrats deployed to shove this unpopular legislation down everyone’s throat have so poisoned the well on Capitol Hill that Democrats have no good will left to make strategic alliances on even reasonable legislation anymore. When a party has such huge majorities, even small gestures of reconciliation are enough to splinter the ranks of opponents and obtain cooperation. But Democrats played the game of our way or the highway with ObamaCare, ignoring warnings that this would render them completely impotent for the rest of President Obama’s term. Indeed, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina,who had been working with Senator Chuck Schumer of New York to craft comprehensive immigration reform, gave up in disgust in the wake of ObamaCare.
How ironic that a president who got elected on the promise of bipartisan comity has produced nothing but partisan rancor. And his signature legislation that was supposed to save America’s most vulnerable has begun by throwing them under the bus.
Dalmia assigns Republicans their (ample) share of the blame, too. Read the whole thing.
DADT Debate
Last week military analyst Stuart Koehl had a piece at the Weekly Standard opposing the end of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT). I wrote a response, and he posted a rebuttal. I recommend reading those pages before continuing here.
Ending DADT, Again
Stuart Koehl has a piece at The Weekly Standard against ending Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT). He presents a comprehensive set of arguments based on readiness, that ending DADT will hurt the effectiveness of the force.
I disagree, and it’s worth pointing out that he is quick to dismiss the fact that other first-rate militaries have allowed gays to serve without damaging readiness. As he puts it:
But history provides plenty of evidence that homosexuality does undermine unit cohesion. The current practices of other armies are an experiment in progress, which should not overturn empirically proven policies. There are also significant differences between those armies and the United States military. The first is scale—the entire British army is barely the size of the Marine Corps, while the Israeli army is very small unless fully mobilized. Neither the British nor the Israeli armies undertake extended overseas deployments of the length or scale of the U.S. military; Israeli army is very much a “commuter” force, with most troops living at home unless serving in the field—which is only an hour or so from home. As a result, neither has any experience with homosexuals serving in the field for extended periods. Finally, neither the British nor the Israeli armies have experienced anything approaching an extended, high-intensity war, so neither has any idea what effect homosexuals in the ranks might have on combat effectiveness.
Israel certainly has experience with an extended, high-intensity war. Since its birth it has faced the threat of invasion and terrorism, and the forecast for the last few decades has been scattered machine-gun fire with a chance of rockets by mid-afternoon.
Except for the United States, Britain remains the largest donor of forces to Afghanistan (now America’s longest war), according to the ISAF website. This excellent dispatch from Michael Yon portrays them as a first-rate force. There’s even a female combat medic on patrol with Yon. I see no difference between American and British experiences in Afghanistan to support Koehl’s claim.
Setting aside the official policy, American commanders have historically looked the other way during war to allow gays to serve in their units. As I said in this post:
Sergeant Darren Manzella served as a combat medic, and his chain of command investigated the claim that he was gay. Manzella provided pictures and video of him with his boyfriend, but found “no evidence of homosexuality.”
The story makes clear that Manzella gave them plenty evidence of homosexuality, but it didn’t make any sense to get rid of a good soldier in a critical field when he wanted to continue serving and there was a war going on.
Gays are currently serving in Afghanistan and Iraq. I am certain that many of their brothers and sisters in arms suspect or know that they are gay, and don’t care. Ending DADT will not harm military readiness.
A Look Inside the Dark Heart of the GOP
Evidence that Republican leaders and conservative pundits want to shake off their anti-gay image continues to mount. Since the 2008 election, gay marriage has become legal in four more states and the District of Columbia, yet conservatives have been virtually silent. As Congress moves to repeal the don’t ask, don’t tell policy, Republicans are almost all voting against it, but they’re not making a lot of noise about it. Jonathan Rauch cites the lack of interest in Iowa in overturning the state court’s gay marriage decision and Republican strategist Grover Norquist’s observation that the Tea Party enthusiasm is focusing Republicans and conservatives on economic rather than social issues.
Many politicians have had a long dark night of the poll. They know that public opinion on gay rights has changed. Gallup just issued a poll showing that more than half of Americans believe that “gay or lesbian relations” are “morally acceptable.” Seventy percent, including majorities of all demographic groups, favor allowing openly gay people to serve in the military. Those are big changes since 2003, much less 1993, and politicians can read polls. Indeed, one thing that gay progress shows us is that cultural change precedes political change.
But out in the real world, where real Republicans live, the picture isn’t as promising. In the Virginia suburbs of Washington this week, Patrick Murray defeated Matthew Berry in a Republican primary. Berry, formerly a lawyer for the Institute for Justice and the Department of Justice, seemed to be better funded and better organized than Murray, an Iraq war veteran. The Republican in my household received at least two mailers and three phone calls from the Berry campaign and nothing from Murray. So why did Murray win? Well, Berry is openly gay, and David Weigel at the Washington Post reports that the Murray campaign did send out flyers focusing on gay issues. They may have gone only to Republicans in the more conservative parts of the district. And Republican activist Rick Sincere tells me that “in the last few days before the election, I received numerous emails from the Murray campaign that included subtle reminders that Matthew is gay and supports an end to DADT. He also, in a Monday email, took a quotation from Matthew out of context to make it look like he supports a federally-enforced repeal of Virginia’s anti-marriage law. In other words, Murray played the anti-gay card.” Blogger RedNoVa made similar observations, adding, “If you were at the Matthew Berry party last night, you would notice that the average age in the room was about 30. Young people were everywhere. The future of our party was there. Murray’s campaign crowd was older, and full of party purists.”
Go Ahead: Ask. Tell.
Reports that the Obama administration and Congress are nearing a deal to repeal the misguided “don’t ask, don’t tell” (DADT) policy is good news for military effectiveness, and consistent with the highest ideals of our society.
The repeal of DADT will ensure that the most qualified, most highly motivated individuals are able to join the military. It will halt the discharge of highly trained men and women who have served their country honorably, and wish to continue to do so.
Earlier decisions to expand military service to qualified Americans, from Harry Truman’s decision to end racial segregation in the military, to Gerald Ford’s opening of the service academies to women, were unpopular within some quarters of American society at the time, but wise on the merits. These and other policies aimed at ensuring the most exacting standards in our military are now seen as instrumental to making it the finest in the world.
President Obama and the leaders in Congress are to be commended for this wise decision.
Ending Don’t Ask Don’t Tell
Contrary to the claims of some conservatives, gays can and do serve in the military. This video highlights the story of a combat medic at Fort Hood, Texas, one of the major troop installations in the United States. Warning: long video (13 minutes).
Sergeant Darren Manzella served as a combat medic, and his chain of command investigated the claim that he was gay. Manzella provided pictures and video of him with his boyfriend, but found “no evidence of homosexuality.”
The story makes clear that Manzella gave them plenty evidence of homosexuality, but it didn’t make any sense to get rid of a good soldier in a critical field when he wanted to continue serving and there was a war going on.
The British and Israeli armed forces allow gays to serve openly and still have first-rate combat units. When Admiral Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says it is time to repeal DADT and believes that we can do so without compromising readiness, objections based on domestic politics, and not on military grounds, lose a lot of credibility.
Telling and Fighting
There is a popular argument that, what with two wars underway, this is no time to rock the military by abolishing the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy and letting homosexuals serve openly. That’s basically what the secretary of defense says.
This post by Stephen Walt reminded me that the opposite is true: that wars are an opportunity to change dumb personnel policies. The end of war in Iraq will deprive advocates of equality in military service of one of their best arguments: restrictions on who the military can employ undermine the effort to win. And the best advocates for the change are current and former service members making that point.
Rachel Maddow had a good segment the other day on the topic. Her guests were a gay, Arabic-speaking lieutenant who is being booted out of the Army National Guard for coming out, and former rear admiral and now Pennslyvania congressman Joe Sestak, who is co-sponsoring legislation to change the law.
I predict that allowing gays to serve openly will be like allowing women on navy ships or even gay marriage. Lots of people fight it. Then it happens, it’s no big deal, and everyone forgets what they were so upset about.
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