With DADT ending, we can acknowledge it never protected soldiers. It just promoted prejudice.

[babylonsister]

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=basic_training_in_bigotry

Basic Training in Bigotry
With DADT ending, we can acknowledge it never protected soldiers. It just promoted prejudice.


Gabriel Arana | September 16, 2010 | web only


Lt. Dan Choi on Tuesday, June 30, 2009, after publicly announcing he is gay. (AP Photo/Pool, Gloria Wright)

snip//

"When your chain of command, your institution is making a clear statement that gay, lesbian, and bisexual people are essentially second-class, it filters down to create an environment in which people feel empowered to have negative attitudes toward gay, lesbian, and bisexual people -- and act in ways that reflect themsays Melissa Sheridan Embser-Herbert, a professor of sociology at Hamline University who studies the social dynamics in the military. She is also a former member of the U.S. Army and Army Reserve.

snip//

In 2000, the Pentagon finally confronted the epidemic of harassment in the armed forces after fellow soldiers brutally beat Barry Winchell, an infantry soldier in the Army, to death with a baseball bat as he slept in his barracks. In the wake of the incident, the Department of Defense conducted a study that found 80 percent of service members had heard their colleagues use gay slurs or tell gay jokes and 85 percent reported the jokes were tolerated by other service members or their superiors. In addition, 37 percent said they had witnessed their colleagues harass a particular service member for his or her perceived sexual orientation.

The policy has also helped anti-gay attitudes persist in the military, even as public sentiment toward gays has warmed. It's true that the military has long been more wary of gays than broader society. In 1993, more than three-fourths of military members opposed allowing gays in the military, compared with around 60 percent of the public. Some of the disparity between civilian and military attitudes is no doubt because service members are more likely to be Republican and religious, but the chasm between public and military opinion has only widened since DADT took effect. Today, public support for the ban has plummeted to around 20 percent while military members still oppose it by a nearly two-to-three margin.

Just as troubling as the prejudice DADT promotes is the fact that it withholds the antidote. Public attitudes toward gay rights have softened for many reasons, but chief among them is that in 1993, most Americans did not personally know a gay person, which studies show is the single best predictor of homophobic attitudes. Today, more than 75 percent of Americans have an openly gay co-worker, family member, or friend. In contrast, members of the military have been denied the opportunity to challenge their prejudices and stereotypes about gay people by having openly gay colleagues and superiors whom they respect.

"There is just no education," says Christopher Ness, deputy policy director for the Palm Center, a research institute at the University of California, Santa Barbara, dedicated to studying sexual minorities in the military. "It's an affirmative stigma that prevents an actual dialogue and keeps the services -- not just gay troops -- in the closet."

DADT supporters, of course, would like to keep it that way. Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council, unwittingly reveals the real danger of letting gays serve openly: In a recent op-ed defending DADT, he warned that repealing the policy would "indoctrinate into the myths of the homosexual movement: that people are born 'gay' and cannot change and that homosexual conduct does no harm to the individual or to society." As long as the prejudices of people like Perkins' are what guide our military personnel policy, DADT will continue to make it a place where only people like him feel comfortable serving.

[bushisanidiot]

1. It was actually a step up from the policy that was in place at the time.

simply repealing DADT does nothing for us but put us right back to being victims of open season on gays in the military. you seem to forget the interrogations that gays went through before DADT. DADT was a way to tell the military brass to back the fuck off and they couldn't pursue any hunches or evidence that a soldier was gay. they did NOT like having to stand down on pursuing the ousting of gays.. until they figured out how to get gays to confess without coercion.

there should be no anti-gay policies in the u.s. military, period. repealing DADT isn't enough.

[USArmyParatrooper]

2. Wait, DADT ending? What are you doing? Stick to the narrative!

Sorry, I've just been marveled at how little attention has been paid since I've been posting for months that DADT repeal was being spearheaded in September. In fact, it was flat out ignored.

In any case, I think DADT was a zero net effect compared to what we had before. Before and after DADT gays could still join, they just had to lie about who they are.