Gallup brings good news. Across the political spectrum a growing majority of Americans favor allowing openly gay men and women to serve in the military as who they are, not as who they have to pretend to be to keep their jobs. In other words, as Lymari Morales writes for Gallup, a majority of Americans "now favor what essentially equates to repealing the 'don't ask, don't tell' policy."
The poll was conducted May 7-10 and released Friday. The results show that 69 percent now favor open service as opposed to 63 percent in an earlier poll conducted Nov. 19-24, 2004. The biggest increase in support came from conservatives (up twelve points to 58 percent), weekly churchgoers (up eleven points to 60 percent), and Republicans (up six points to 58 percent). So much for the conventional wisdom. One by one the stereotypes held by those on both sides of this issue are falling. Call it the domino effect. But whatever you call it, the "issue" is rapidly becoming a non-issue.
Yes, I know the battle is not yet over. We have to fight harder than ever now that we're on the verge of slaying the dragon of gay discrimination in the military. Some dragons, like some cats, have nine lives. Elaine Donnelly and her noisy ideologues of the right will always be with us -- like death and taxes. Among a few of our political and military leaders the prospect of lesbians and gays serving openly in the military still brings on what the Victorians would call "nerves" (and what Freud would call "hysteria"). Nonetheless, slowly and often tentatively our leaders are catching up with where the American people have been for some years now. In a bit of role reversal, where the people lead, the leaders will follow. A few of them are seriously lagging, and probably never will catch up.
But some of them are ahead of the curve. That's where I put President Obama. True, he's not yet Moses ready to part the Red Sea and lead us to the Promised Land. He's moving in quiet increments toward his goal, which I firmly believe is to see "don't ask, don't tell" repealed. However. we're still anxious because we need specifics. We need to know how he intends to do it.
We certainly welcome the latest and most encouraging example of the president's thinking: the strategic, well thought out, and politically astute appointment of the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, John M. McHugh (R-NY), as Secretary of the Army. He is steeped in the ways of the Pentagon. He has been a friend to the Pentagon, to privates as well as generals, and over the years has worked with a parade of Joint Chiefs. He understands how they think and what they need, and how they get it. He also understands why they don't always get what they want (or want what they get).
Representative McHugh voted for "don't ask, don't tell" in 1993 but like a lot of other people reflected in the Gallup poll he has evolved over the years. When the Advocate's Kerry Eleveld asked White House press secretary Robert Gibbs about it last week, Gibbs replied, "It's obvious from . . . statements that Congressman McHugh has made that he and the president are in agreement on changing a policy they both don't think is working for this country right now."
Many other military and civilian leaders have come to the same conclusion. Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs John Shalikashvili, retired Admirals Charles R. Larson, twice superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy, and Jamie Barnett; former Senators Bob Kerrey, Ernest "Fritz" Hollings, and Alan Simpson -- all now oppose the law. They are only mirroring the thinking of most Americans on the subject.
The urgency for Congress and the president to act on repealing "don't ask, don't tell" was underscored today when the Supreme Court refused to accept a petition from one of the plaintiffs in the Cook v. Gates case challenging the constitutionality of the DADT law. That case was originally brought by SLDN lawyers and pro-bono attorneys at the law firm of WilmerHale on behalf of twelve service members who were discharged under DADT, and all of whom proudly stated they would be willing to be reinstated and serve again if the law were invalidated. The Cook plaintiffs lost in the trial court and in the First Circuit and today's action effectively means that these twelve plaintiffs have exhausted all of their legal remedies.
They still want to serve, but only Congress and the president can make that possible.