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The Politics of Dancing:

“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and the Role of Moral Claims

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 December 2012

Beth Bailey
Beth Bailey*
Affiliation:
Temple University
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Journal of Policy History , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , January 2013 , pp. 89 - 113
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Copyright © Donald Critchlow and Cambridge University Press 2013

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References

Notes

1. Nathaniel Frank (Palm Center) has done an excellent job of locating the slips of tongue and the unguarded moments of politicians and military officers that show how fundamental moral condemnations of homosexuality are to this debate, whether it is conducted in the language of morality or not. He, however, was making a case against the existing policy of DADT by demonstrating that despite the arguments about military efficacy and unit cohesion, those who led the fight against gays serving openly were motivated by antigay religious beliefs and moral repugnance, while I am focusing on the tactical use of military effectiveness arguments. For more detailed discussion of the policy and public struggles over DADT, see Frank, Nathaniel, Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America (New York, 2009)Google Scholar; Belkin, Aaron and Bateman, Geoffrey, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell: Debating the Gay Ban in the Military (Boulder, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Rostker, Bernard D. et al. ., Sexual Orientation and U.S. Military Personnel Policy: Options and Assessment (Santa Monica, 1993)Google Scholar. Embser-Herbert’s, Melissa SheridanThe U.S. Military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Policy: A Reference Handbook (Westport, Conn., 2007)Google Scholar includes a useful annotated bibliography.

2. This section is based on Bérubé, Allan, Coming Out Under Fire (New York, 1990)Google Scholar; Canaday, Margot, The Straight State: Sexuality and Citizenship in Twentieth-Century America (Princeton, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bailey, Beth, Sex in the Heartland (Cambridge, Mass., 1999)Google Scholar; Johnson, David K., The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government (Chicago, 2004)Google Scholar; Frank, Unfriendly Fire, and Bailey, Beth, America’s Army: Making the All-Volunteer Force (Cambridge, Mass., 2009).Google Scholar

3. Bérubé, Coming Out Under Fire, 11–12.

4. Undesirable discharges occupied a middle range between honorable and dishonorable. Originally referred to as “blue discharges” because the document was on blue paper, undesirable discharges were quickly accomplished administrative discharges that removed servicemembers from the military without courtmartial or prison sentence. For postwar policies on blue discharges and veterans benefits, see Canaday, The Straight State, chap. 4.

5. Frank, Unfriendly Fire, 9.

6. “Vernon Berg III; His Lawsuit Changed Military Policy on Gays,” Los Angeles Times, 3 February 1999; Don Phillips, “W. Graham Claytor, Jr., 82, Ex-Amtrak President, Dies,” Washington Post, 15 May 1994, B7.

7. Memorandum for Secretaries of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from Deputy Secretary of Defense W. Graham Claytor, Washington, D.C., 16 January 1981, quoted in Shilts, Randy, Conduct Unbecoming: Gays and Lesbians in the U.S. Military (New York, 1993), 377.Google Scholar

8. Rationale for Exclusion of Homosexuals from Military Service, Department of Defense, 29 September 1980, as quoted in Shilts, Conduct Unbecoming, 379.

9. Report of the Joint Service Administrative Discharge Study Group (1977–78), Department of Defense, August 1978, Prepared for Assistant Secretary of Defense (Manpower, Reserve Affairs & Logistics), as quoted in Shilts, Conduct Unbecoming, 378.

10. Homosexuality, Department of Defense Directive 1332.14, 16 January 1981, as quoted in Shilts, 378–79.

11. “The Sergeant v. the Air Force,” Time, 8 September 1975, 46.

12. For more discussion of difficulties in the first decade of the all-volunteer force and on the Carter administration policies on race and gender in the U.S. military, see Bailey, America’s Army, chaps. 4 and 5. On the Carter administration’s approach to gay rights and women’s rights, see Potter, Claire Bond, “Paths to Political Citizenship: Gay Rights, Feminism, and the Carter Presidency,” Journal of Policy History 24, no. 1 (2012).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13. For discharge figures by service, 1980–2009, see David F. Burrelli, “‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’: The Law and Military Policy on Same-Sex Behavior,” Congressional Research Service, 14 October 2010, 9–10. For DACOWITS initiatives, see its website: http://dacowits.defense.gov/History/; for the Military Freedom Project, see the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force history, http://www.thetaskforce.org/about_us/history (accessed May 2012).

14. “Court Reinstates Lesbian’s Lawsuit Against Army,” New York Times, 20 August 1991, A22; Lynne Duke, “Military’s Last Social Taboo,” Washington Post, 19 August 1991, A1A; Editorial, “Gay Soldiers, Good Soldiers,” New York Times, 1 September 1991, E10.

15. Remarks of Hon. Patricia Schroeder, Introduction of the Military Freedom Act of 1992, 102nd Cong., 2nd sess., Congressional Record 138 (19 May 1992). Schroeder was accompanied by gay and lesbian veterans and members of the Military Freedom Project; the act, which eventually gained 72 Democrats and 5 Republicans as cosponsors, was referred to the House Committee on Armed Services and never came to the floor. The GAO report, Homosexuals in the Armed Forces: United States GAO Report (Washington, D.C., 12 June 1992), is available at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/pwh/gao_report.asp (accessed May 2012); the report was requested by Representatives John Conyers Jr., Gerry E. Studds, and Ted Weiss. On Cammermeyer, see Timothy Egan, “Dismissed from Army as Lesbian, Colonel Will Fight Homosexual Ban,” New York Times, 31 May 1992, 18; Duke, “Military’s Last Social Taboo.”

16. Curtis Wilkie, “Harvard Tosses Warm-up Queries to Clinton on Eve of N.H. Debate,” Boston Globe, 31 October 1991, 22; Jeffrey Schmalz, “Gay Areas Are Jubilant over Clinton,” New York Times, 5 November 1992, B8; Clinton, Bill and Gore, Albert, Putting People First: How We Can All Change America (New York, 1992), 64.Google Scholar

17. Frank, Conduct Unbecoming, 25; Schmalz, “Gay Areas Are Jubilant over Clinton.” According to exit polls, of those who self-identified as homosexual or bisexual, 72 percent voted for Clinton, 14 percent for George H. W. Bush, and 14 percent for Ross Perot.

18. On the campaign of the religious right, see Frank, Unfriendly Fire, 30–57. Schmalz’s 5 November 1992 New York Times article on gay celebrations also quoted the Reverend Sheldon, who described Clinton’s election as “a blessing in disguise.”

19. “Excerpts from President-Elect’s News Conference in Arkansas,” New York Times, 13 November 1992, A18. The eighth question reporters asked President-elect Clinton was about gays and lesbians in the military, with a follow-up question on whether it was part of his 100-day agenda.

20. Quotation from John Kifner, “Clinton Says He Felt Forced into Setting Gay Policy,” New York Times, 7 December 2000.

21. Michael Duffy, “Obstacle Course,” Time, 8 February 1993.

22. Surveys by Time/CNN/Yankelovich Partners Poll, 13–14 and 22–25 January 1993; Surveys by Gallup/CNN/USA Today Poll, 29–31 January 1993, all retrieved 5 September 2008, from iPOLL Databank, The Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, University of Connecticut, <http://libproxy.temple.edu:2705/ipoll.html>.

23. Margaret Carlson, “And Then There Was Nunn,” Time, 26 July 1993.

24. Duffy, “Obstacle Course.”

25. Eric Schmitt, “A Military Town Makes Its Anti-Gay Feelings Clear,” New York Times, 25 March 1993.

26. Ulrich, Marybeth Peterson, “Infusing Civil-Military Relations Norms in the Officer Corps,” in American Defense Policy, ed. Bolt, Paul J., Coletta, Damon V., and Shackelford, Collins G. Jr., 8th ed. (Baltimore, 2005), 350Google Scholar. Statistics come from Holsti, Ole R., “A Widening Gap between the U.S. Military and Civilian Society? Some Evidence, 1976–96,” International Security 23 (Winter 1998): 5–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 15; see also Janowitz, Morris, The Professional Soldier (New York, 1971)Google Scholar, and Thomas E. Ricks, “Is Military Professionalism Declining?” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, July 1998. On the rise of evangelical Christianity in the U.S. military, see Anne C. Loveland, American Evangelicals and the U.S. Military, 1942–1993 (Baton Rouge, 1993).

27. NAE Washington Insight, January 1993, quoted in Loveland, American Evangelicals and the U.S. Mililitary, 339.

28. Abel quoted in Loveland, American Evangelicals and the U.S. Military, 336.

29. Loveland, American Evangelicals and the U.S. Military, 336–38.

30. Maginnis’s decision is from Frank, Unfriendly Fire, 38; Frank cites Anne Loveland’s unpublished interview with Maginnis. For the army study group and Maginnis’s analysis, see Frank, Unfriendly Fire, 37–43.

31. In his January 1993 confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, nominee Les Aspin stated that he thought there were problems of “fairness and equity” in the current policy that banned homosexuals from military service. He argued that the military would have to address the issue in the next four years whether Bill Clinton had been elected or not. Clinton’s pledge, he claimed, would force them to confront the issue “head on” rather than “avoid the issue or slide around it or try and patch up the whole issue and let it go away.” “Confirmation Hearing for Rep. Les Aspin (D-Wis.) as Secretary of Defense,” Hearing Before the Committee on Armed Services, U.S. Senate, 103rd Cong., 2nd sess., 7 January 1993 (Proquest Congressional).

32. Frank, Unfriendly Fire, 43–44; Bob Maginnis served as unofficial adviser to the senior member of the MWG, Army Lt. Gen John P. Otjen. Bio, Bob Maginnis, Family Research Council, http://www.frc.org/biography/bob-maginnis-senior-fellow-for-national-security (accessed April 2012).

33. Frank, Unfriendly Fire, 117.

34. Christopher Hitchens, “Powell’s Secret Coup,” The Nation, 22 January 2001; quotations from Powell’s speech from Peter Spiegel and Joel Rubin, “Tune Is Changing on Gays in Military,” The Nation, 9 August 2007, and Loveland, American Evangelicals and the U.S. Military, 324–25.

35. Spiegel and Rubin, “Tune Is Changing on Gays in Military”; Loveland, American Evangelicals and the U.S. Military, 324–25. Concerned Women for America ran an advertisement in USA Today that implied that Powell had stated that “allowing homosexuals in the armed forces would destroy the military.” The group had directly attributed that statement to him in a widely circulated appeal from its Legislative Action Committee. Powell rejected that statement and the group’s suggestion that he condoned their work in a letter published in USA Today, 16 April 1993. He cited a speech he made at American University in December 1992 as evidence of his position. See “Powell: Ad misstated position,” USA Today, 4 April 1993; Letter from Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee to CWA Members, March 1993, in “Campaign for Military Service, 1993” file, box 92, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Records, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library. Hereafter cited as CMS, NGLTF.

36. Policy Concerning Homosexuality in the Armed Forces, Hearings Before the Committee on Armed Services, U.S. Senate, 103rd Cong., 1st sess., 29 March 1993, 3–4. Excerpts from both House and Senate Armed Services Committee hearings are available in digital form at http://dont.stanford.edu/hearings/hearings.htm.

37. Policy Implications of Lifting the Ban on Homosexuals in the Military, Hearings Before the Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives, 103rd Cong., 1st sess., 4–5 May 1993, 1–2.

38. “Meeting with the HASC” Memorandum, from Tanya Domi, NGLTF, to Concerned Parties, 4 March 1993, in CMS, NGLTF.

39. House Committee, Policy Implications, Buyer comment, 4 May 1993, 74–75; Senate Committee, Policy Concerning Homosexuality, Faircloth comment, 29 March 1993, 214; Thurmond comment, 11 May 1993, 567 (Thurmond quoted in Frank, Unfriendly Fire, 103).

40. Eric Schmitt, “Calm Analysis Dominates Panel Hearing on Gay Ban,” New York Times, 1 April 1993.

41. Phrase from Senator Smith, Senate Committee, Policy Concerning Homosexuality, 11 May 1993, 641.

42. Testimony Before Senate Committee, Policy Concerning Homosexuality; Schafer, 535; Forrest, 582.

43. Remarks of Sen. Coats, Dan, “Homosexuals in the Military,” 103rd Cong., 1st sess., Congressional Record 139 (22 June 1993): S7605–06.Google Scholar

44. Senate Committee, Policy Concerning Homosexuality, comments by Kennedy, Korb, Levin, 31 March 1993, 283, 291, and throughout; Kerry comments 7 May 1993, 478.

45. Ibid., 11 May 1993, 594-96.

46. McDonald Testimony from House Committee on Armed Services Military Personnel Subcommittee, Women in the Military, 96th Cong., 1st and 2nd sess., 13–16 November 1979 and 11 February 1980, 47.

47. Joseph E. Broadus, “Yes: Don’t Second-Guess the Military,” in “At Issue: Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” American Bar Association Journal (October 1993): 54. See also Michael A. Lindenberger, “‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’: An End to Court Deference to the Military?” Time, 20 October 2010. In the 2010 congressional debate over the repeal of DADT, Republicans again argued that the military was an exceptional institution and could not always be held to the same rules as civilian society. David M. Herszenhorn and Carl Hulse, “House Votes to Allow Repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Law,” New York Times, 28 May 2010.

48. Kifner, “Clinton Says He Felt Forced into Setting Gay Policy”; Jacob Weisberg, “Torch Song Strategy: The Gay Movement and the Gay Ban,” New Republic, 9 August 1993, 11; estimate of number of military members discharged is from Servicemembers Legal Defense Network website. The Palm Center has collected data revealing discharges by job category and by military base, though statistics are only available for the period between 1998 and 2003; data are available on the Center’s website: www.palmcenter.org. The Senate vote for repeal was 65 to 31; the House vote was 250 to 175.

49. Broadus, “Yes: Don’t Second-Guess the Military.”

50. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates explicitly rejected the critique that the military did not typically survey its members to determine either mission or policy, informing the Senate Armed Services Committee in December 2010 that “this outreach was not a matter of taking a poll of the military to determine whether the law should be changed,” but instead an effort “to engage our troops and their families on this issue—to learn the attitudes, obstacles and concerns needing attention—as ultimately it will be they who will determine whether or not such a transition would be successful.” Statement of Robert M. Gates, Secretary of Defense, to U.S. Senate, Committee on Armed Services, 2 December 2010.

51. Survey by Office of Public Opinion Research, July 1945; retrieved from iPoll Databank, The Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, University of Connecticut.

52. “Congress’s Christmas Lump of Coal for Troops—Open Homosexuality?” on Americans for Truth, December 2010, at http://americansfortruth.com, accessed 5 March 2011. More complex conservative positions distinguished between inherent status, such as race, and “choice.” Emerging scientific data that suggested homosexuality was inborn created conflict for many who meant to distinguish between necessary equal rights protections based on inherent status (race and gender) and what they believed were the invalid protection claims of sexual minorities that were based on sexual “preference” (thus choice rather than status).

53. Washington Post/ABC News Poll, conducted 9–12 December 2010, at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/polls/postpoll_12132010.html (accessed January 2012).

54. Belkin, Aaron, How We Won: Progressive Lessons from the Repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” Huffington Post Media Group, 2011 (digital only, available through Amazon.com). See also Nathaniel Frank, “What Does the Empirical Research Say about the Impact of Openly Gay Service on the Military? A Research Memo,” 3 March 2010, The Palm Center, http://www.palmcenter.org/publications/dadt/what_does_empirical_research_say_about_impact_openly_gay_service_military (accessed January 2012).Google Scholar

55. Video of the 2008 hearings is available on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjqs1SqvVSQ (accessed January 2012).

56. For Larry King’s interview with Tony Perkins, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYhXwlpy69s (accessed January 2012).

57. Thom Shanker, “Top General Explains Remarks on Gays,” New York Times, 14 March 2007 (online). See also “General Pace and Gay Soldiers” (editorial), New York Times, 15 March 2007; “Of Morality and the General” (letters to the editor), New York Times, March 15, 2007.

58. Justin Richardson, M.D., Letter to the Editor, New York Times, 10 June 1993, under heading “Uncle Sam Still Wants You to Live a Lie”; and Lt. Col. Om Prakash, “The Efficacy of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’” Joint Force Quarterly, October 2009.

59. Jesse Lee (posted by), “The President Signs Repeal of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”: “Out of Many, We Are One,” White House blog, 22 December 2010, at http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/12/22/president-signs-repeal-dont-ask-dont-tell-out-many-we-are-one).