No one understands the policy as anything but a crutch, a way to avoid having to deal with the facts of life, the fact that there are gay and lesbian people who didn't choose their sexuality any more than nongay people did.
There is no humane way to enforce an inhumane policy, just some that are less abusive, that's all.
The military "graduates" thousands of officers and soldiers each year, who go back into civilian life. It's a disgrace that they bring their attitudes that it's okay to have formal policies that tell gays to shut up, be silent, hide a loving phone call to their partner, or face getting fired. Why should taxpayers support an institution like that, under some gross pretense of mission incompatibility? There is no humane way to enforce an inhumane policy, just some that are slightly less abusive, that's all.Someone should tell Peter Pace or James Conway, before he gets out in front of the camera and makes an argument that he might regret.
It's been going on a long time:
Even ten years ago, "don't ask, don't tell" was already considered a joke by a new generation of enlisted personnel. By 2000, according to former Navy JAG Rear Admiral John Hutson, "Things had changed so considerably, that I think 18- and 19- and 20-year-olds were just laughing at us because we didn't understand what they were thinking." Hutson, who was an advisor to the 1993 Military Working Group that helped create "don't ask, don't tell," shared these reflections with me for research I conducted for a book about the policy. By century's end, he said, "young people had so dramatically opened up to the idea of working alongside openly gay people that us crusty old farts protecting them was just a joke."
