As a lesson in the self-defeating power of bigotry and stereotype, the "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gay men and women in the United States military could hardly be stronger. Military cohesion and readiness were the justifications given for the 1993 law introduced (as the softening of an outright ban) by president Bill Clinton. In fact, the law made the military less cohesive and less ready, a California judge said last week in ruling it unconstitutional.
From the law's inception until 2009, 13,000 service-people were let go. That loss, and the refusal of some universities and colleges to permit on-campus recruiting that violated their equality rules, led to a desperate shortage of troops. The army stepped up its acceptance of convicted felons, and lowered its fitness and educational standards.
Michael Almy, a member of a gay Republican group that challenged the law in court, was one of those 13,000 people, a commissioned officer for 13 years in the U.S. Air Force who attained the rank of major. His orientation was discovered by a colleague who read his personal e-mail without permission. Mr. Almy was an expert in communications technology, and his job had been to maintain control of most of Iraqi airspace. Without him, his squadron "fell apart," a colleague said.
Like Mr. Almy, others among those 13,000 discharged service-people had vital skills. Some members were fluent in Arabic, Chinese, Farsi and Korean. Others had medical training. Still others worked in military intelligence, counterterrorism and weapons development.
And the military did not believe in its own rationale, it appeared. When the war in Afghanistan started in 2001, the military began deploying service-people whose sexual orientation was under investigation. If they were so disruptive to military cohesion, they would have been left behind, not sent to a war zone, as Justice Virginia Phillips of federal district court said.
"Don't ask, don't tell" will not be tossed into history's dustbin immediately, but soon. It never should have lasted so long. Canada ended discrimination against gays in the military in 1992, in response to a court challenge that the Canadian government did not bother to defend, knowing it would lose. The Obama administration defended the law in court. That law made no sense in a country that prides itself on free speech.
Judge Phillips used the phrase "autonomy of self" to describe what the gay service-people lose under the law. Militaries have a right to restrict autonomy, of course, but there have to be rational grounds for stepping on a fundamental liberty. These grounds never existed. Instead there were blind prejudice and stereotype, and the military suffered for maintaining them.