Unfriendly Fire

by Dr. Nathaniel Frank

  An article in Armed Forces and Society concludes from this data that there is a “cultural-organizational pressure within the armed forces to appear as though one is either uncomfortable or intolerant of homosexuality” and indeed to “pretend to be uncomfortable” with gays, but which belies greater actual comfort than what is stated. It means that when polls say 59 percent of military men would resign if the ban is lifted,60 careful observers must recall the differences between stated opinions and actual behavior. Opinion polls sometimes say more about perceived norms than about likely behavior, and they often serve primarily as opportunities to register approval or disapproval. Biased attitudes may not translate into discriminatory behavior. More to the point, the biases may not be nearly as strong as out-of-touch politicians and other cultural leaders believe, especially if they base these beliefs on limited surveys or anecdotes.

  A sixth lesson is that, despite fears that gays could turn fighting forces into gay pride floats, the majority of gays serving in foreign militaries and American police and fire departments conform to expected norms of their organization. This means either they do not come out, or they come out to selected peers or supervisors but succeed at fitting in with their units in dress, appearance, and comportment. A lesbian who was a lieutenant in the Canadian Forces, for instance, said that “gay people have never screamed to be really, really out. They just want to be really safe from not being fired.” Rand researchers found the same was true with police and fire departments.61

  Rand found no basis for worries that stereotypical behavior and mannerisms, particularly of effeminate men, would “compromise the image of their force.” Gays and lesbians, said the report, “were virtually indistinguishable from their heterosexual peers.” Gays were reported and observed to be “sufficiently innocuous in their behavior and appearance to have been able to pass as heterosexual members of the force.” Some may question the implication here that “acting gay” would somehow not be “innocuous.” But conformity to the mainstream is widely considered a necessity for military and paramilitary organizations. As a gay police officer said, “You can’t be flamboyant. Most gay men who are police officers are probably on the ‘butch’ side. You have to look like a police officer.”62

  The fact that many gay people remain discreet even when they’re permitted to disclose their identity has been used by some to argue that “don’t ask, don’t tell” doesn’t need to be repealed—after all, why fuss over a policy that requires gays to do what they’re already doing anyway? But it could just as easily be used to argue that the policy is not needed. If social norms and expectations keep gays in check ( just like most everybody else), why should a law force people to do what they’re going to do anyway? It’s an argument conservatives should love: The federal government is a lousy regulator of individual identity; no one is better than individuals at choosing when an open discussion about who they are is going to help form bonds of trust in a unit and when discretion is the better part of valor. Even more important, a blanket policy against honest discussion ends up blocking gay troops from seeking out military chaplains, doctors, and psychologists, the support structures that are essential to preserving morale and readiness, and who are not remotely threatened by knowing a service member is gay. But more on this to come.

  Lesson number seven is what makes gay inclusion work: clear, consistent rules governing behavior. In many cases, the countries that lifted their bans on gay troops issued strict guidelines holding gay and straight service members to the same standards of conduct. The rules prohibited sexual behavior that undermined the group or involved the abuse of power, rather than summarily excluding an entire group of people. They also made clear that harassment would not be tolerated. In the militaries they studied, Palm researchers found that, “in each case, although many heterosexual soldiers continue[d] to object to homosexuality, the military’s emphasis on conduct and equal standards was sufficient for encouraging service members to work together as a team” without undermining cohesion. In Australia, an official noted that “our focus is on the work people do, and the way they do the work, and that applies to heterosexuals, bisexuals and homosexuals.” In the case of Great Britain, the Ministry of Defence issued guidelines and speaking notes that emphasized that sexual orientation was to be considered a private matter, that harassment would not be tolerated, and that the new policy “makes no moral judgments about an individual’s behavior. Palm researchers concluded that if people are seen as working hard and contributing to the team effort, “individual differences in opinion or in their personal lives are not considered relevant.” As a lieutenant colonel in the Royal Army’s public relations office put it: “Our great strength as an Army is that we treat everyone [as] an individual who contributes to the team. We’ve won three recent wars—Sierra Leone, Kosovo and East Timor—because we place a lot of importance on personal responsibility.”63

  The focus on individual responsibility and behavior—instead of either what homosexual troops say or how they act, or the beliefs or attitudes of heterosexual troops—is an essential part of this lesson. Much of the opposition to gay service, particularly from religious conservatives, remains grounded in the objection that the government should not force people to accept homosexuality (never mind that the current ban is, among other things, precisely an expression of public beliefs about homosexuality). Lifting the ban, it is argued, would be tantamount to a government endorsement of something that traditional religious belief considers anathema. But service members do not need to be pro-gay in order for gay inclusion to work effectively.

  We have learned this lesson again and again, from a large body of research that includes the military’s early efforts to address racial tension. The assumption of the first advocates for integration was that discriminatory behavior against blacks could best be reduced by changing whites’ attitudes and beliefs about minorities. But researchers found that the sensitivity training and educational programs designed to achieve that goal caused resentment and even hostility and so failed to resolve the problems. Instead, better results were achieved when outward behavior was the focus. Over time, the requirement to treat African Americans respectfully did effect attitude changes, as whites internalized equal treatment as being consistent with the values of the institution. But even these attitude changes, which followed rather than preceded changes in policy and behavior, did not always translate into pronounced “pro-black” beliefs; rather, they amounted to an endorsement of fair and equal treatment as a principle embraced by the larger group.64

  Lesson eight—perhaps the single most important lesson to be learned from the research on foreign militaries and analogous institutions—is the centrality of leadership. In the British case, the chiefs of staff were highly involved in creating the new policy and supported it both privately and publicly. Michael Codner, the assistant director for military sciences at the Royal United Services Institute, noted that one reason for the British military’s success was that those at the very top lined up behind the policy change. “If you look at the thinking of senior personnel, they have invested a great deal of credibility and authority into this policy shift,” he said. “They want to see it fully implemented.” Chief Petty Officer Rob Nunn felt this clearly when he reenlisted: “To a person, everybody I’ve talked to, commander downwards, has said—if you’ve got problems, come and see me.”65

  Scholars who observed the lifting of the gay ban in Britain reported that fundamental attitudes did not change as a result of the ban being lifted—and they didn’t need to. It is, however, crucial for controversial new policies to be perceived as coming from inside the institution, and from strong leaders within the group, as anything that emanates from external pressures can be seen as a threat to the organization’s culture and survival. This perception of outside meddling—from gay rights groups to liberal politicians—formed a large part of the resistance to lifting the gay ban in the United States. In Britain, one of the only officials who reportedly resigned over the
lifting of the ban specified that his departure was not prompted by anti-gay beliefs or even opposition to gay service per se, but by his belief that the policy change was spurred by outside political forces rather than sound considerations for the military’s interests.66

  Patrick Lyster-Todd agreed that strong military leadership was essential to the success of Britain’s policy reform. An officer in the Royal Navy before the ban was lifted, Lyster-Todd later became head of Rank Outsiders, a group dedicated to lifting the ban. “Our MoD and serving chiefs take equality and diversity issues—including the rights of serving gay personnel, whether out or not—incredibly seriously,” he said. “Their approach is that if you want to be a capable force for good in the 21st century, then you need to be of that century and its people.” Again, this observation is corroborated by mounds of research showing that controversial new rules are most effective when top leaders make their genuine support absolutely clear so that the next layer of leaders, those who actually must implement the new rules, come to identify their enforcement of the new policy with their own self-interest as leaders of the institution.67 This is why it is no exaggeration to say that the individual actions of a tiny handful of top military and political leaders—from the determination of Colin Powell and Sam Nunn to the indecisiveness of Bill Clinton—were ultimately responsible for the ongoing policy of gay exclusion. And that policy, which we are still reckoning with today, has been from the beginning an unmitigated disaster.

  7

  “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Don’t Work

  DON’T ASK, DON’T TELL, don’t pursue” took effect on March 1, 1994.1 It aimed to preserve indispensable talent in the armed forces; to protect privacy, morale, and unit cohesion; and, at Bill Clinton’s insistence, it aimed to let gays serve their country discreetly without undue hardship. In short, it was supposed to make sexuality a nonissue in the U.S. military.

  But the result has been quite different. Far from protecting military readiness, the policy has resulted in skyrocketing discharges, causing wasteful losses in critical talent. It has struck at the heart of unit cohesion by breaking apart integrated fighting teams and undermining trust and honesty between soldiers. It has hamstrung tens of thousands of gay and lesbian troops from doing their best and deterred countless others from ever joining. It has cost hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, with nothing to show for the money spent. And, increasingly, its hypocrisy has embarrassed the military, widening the “civil-military gap” and hampering recruitment efforts by alienating Americans who view the military as out of touch.

  The price tag has been far higher than the ruined careers and wasted service of skilled gay linguists, doctors, pilots, and engineers. “Don’t ask, don’t tell” has invaded the privacy of all service members—gay, straight, and everything in between—by casting a cloud of suspicion and uncertainty over the intimate lives of everyone in the armed forces. Straight service members have been investigated, threatened, and even discharged. Some have been turned into informants against their friends and coworkers and been made into unwitting and unwilling objects of deception by gay peers forced to lie or keep their distance to survive. Reports of anti-gay harassment have mushroomed—not only from gays but straights—often women who did not conform to male expectations of proper gender behavior or who rebuffed or complained about unwanted male attention. The resulting atmosphere was, at times, akin to a witch hunt, accompanied by inevitable fear and uncertainty borne by soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen dedicated to serving their country, but required to do so with always a glance backward.

  In other words, the policy has failed. Yet some continue to insist it is “working.” The question is: Working to do what? A fair assessment is complicated by the maze of political statements, presidential orders, legal memos, military directives, and implementing regulations that surrounded the passage of the law. “Don’t ask, don’t tell” bred massive confusion about how service members—gay and straight alike—were expected to behave, what their rights and constraints were, and what military commanders were allowed and expected to do to enforce the rules. The policy was poorly understood and poorly enforced—sometimes due to ignorance and sometimes to animus. Indeed, as we shall see, the mixture of bad policy (vague, unrealistic, rooted in deception, and immoral in any but the narrowest, most sectarian sense) with uneven enforcement (weak-willed, neglectful, and all too often purposely ignored) proved toxic to the lives of troops and the mission of the armed forces.

  This toxicity manifested itself in a variety of ways. Each prong of “don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t pursue” was misunderstood, ignored, and abused by the military. Commanders routinely asked service members about their sexual identity, directly or through surrogate questions. Gay and lesbian men and women were hauled before discharge boards not only when they chose to “tell” but when they were outed by coworkers, ex-lovers, psychologists, chaplains, Internet chat rooms, and even their own parents. Pursuits remained rampant, with flimsy evidence used as the basis of discharge proceedings. Mass witch hunts continued and threats and intimidation were all too routine. Gays and lesbians were still thrown in prison for private, consensual sex; their education and retirement benefits were vengefully snatched from them once they were discharged; their mental health suffered as they were denied access to support services that all other troops could use. Finally, “don’t harass,” which was formally added to the policy’s name in 2000 after a young soldier was murdered by a fellow soldier in an anti-gay attack, also went unenforced, with reports of abuse, humiliation, bullying, and violence piling up. The incidents of harassment were invited and exacerbated by the policy itself: Victims were reluctant to report abuse for fear they would come under suspicion, and the language of “don’t ask, don’t tell”—which says gays and lesbians are an “unacceptable risk to the armed forces’ high standards of morale, good order and discipline”—sent a loud message that gays were unwelcome and even dangerous, virtually greenlighting harassment against them.

  Despite the needless devastation wrought by the policy over the past fifteen years, a strange but predictable counterdevelopment also occurred, especially in the years since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. On the one hand, not much changed for gay and lesbian troops after the United States became a nation at war, showing the stubbornness of the military and Congress, which clung to homophobia even as evidence mounted that it was hurting national security. On the other hand, the discharge run-up of the 1990s did an about-face, as commanders looked the other way, growing tolerance among young recruits replaced the homophobia of the old guard, the military closet—like its civilian counterpart—began to crack and crumble, and openly gay service became more and more the norm. The contrast was the mark of a policy whose guiding assumptions had become totally at odds with the reality of the boots on the ground.

  UNDER THE POLICY, when a commander is faced with evidence of homosexual conduct that he or she deems “credible,” the service member is notified and given the opportunity to accept the charge or go before a hearing. The hearings are held before an administrative discharge board or, for officers, a board of inquiry, presided over by a three-member panel of appointed officers. The panel makes a recommendation to the service secretary, who decides whether to separate or retain the service member. Most such discharges are characterized as honorable; the phrase (depending on the circumstances and service branch) “homosexual conduct,” “homosexual act,” “homosexual statement,” or “homosexual admission” is stamped on the service member’s discharge papers. If the violation was conducted in certain circumstances, such as by force, with a subordinate, on a ship, or in public, the discharge can be characterized as “less than” or “other than” honorable.

  The policy became law in November 1993. From the moment it took effect, on March 1, 1994, homosexual discharges began to increase. In 1994, 617 service members were discharged for “homosexual conduct.” The next year, 772. In 1996, 870 got the boot, 1,007
in 1997, 1,163 in 1998, 1,046 in 1999, and 1,241 in 2000. In 2001, a record 1,273 service members were discharged under the policy, a figure nearly double the discharge rate of 1992, the year before the law was passed. Since 2002, the first full year the United States was at war, discharge figures have dropped nearly every year. From their peak in 2001, the number slid to 906 in 2002, 787 in 2003, and 668 in 2004; it swelled to 742 in 2005, dropped again to 623 in 2006, and reached 627 in 2007. Despite the overall plunge in discharges, a total of 4,353 troops have been ousted under the policy just since 9/11. Since 1994, that number has passed 12,342. The cost to taxpayers of discharging and replacing these troops has been at least $364 million, enough to supply about 2,500 uparmored Humvees.2

  The discharges covered 161 different occupational categories, including intelligence personnel, engineers, medical professionals, administrative specialists, transportation workers, and military police. Over 300 of those lost were language specialists, and more than 750 of the casualties had “critical occupations,” according to the GAO. In the summer of 2004, the Pentagon announced it would issue involuntary recalls to thousands of civilians with these same occupational specialties as the ones just wasted by firing gay and lesbian troops. It was one among countless indications of just how the anti-gay policy directly affects the capacity of the military to retain the expertise and troop strength it needs to fight in the Middle East.3

  HOW DID A policy that was supposed to make sexuality less germane result in such ongoing—and increasing—damage? Why did the talent loss increase despite hopes that it would subside? After all, Clinton had repeatedly proclaimed that the country did not have a person to waste. One answer is that the policy was watered down from the start. In a series of directives, regulations, and instructions written after the policy became law, the Defense Department and the individual service branches were tasked with implementing the federal statute in a way that was consistent with the Clinton-Aspin policy. But in doing so, government lawyers and military leaders issued starkly contradictory instructions to commanders and service members, writing regulations that conflicted not only with one another but also with the original Pentagon policy as outlined by Clinton and Aspin in July 1993.