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Elaine Donnelly is Worried

On 4 October, the Center for Military Readiness held its “Twelfth Annual Celebration” at the National Guard Association Building in Washington, D.C. The conference featured two panels. The first focused on “Gays in the Military." The mood was not so celebratory. Elaine Donnelly (pictured), the President of CMR, is worried. “Depending on the elections,” she said, “things could change with startling speed. The military is about to be hit, if the elections turn out wrong, with a real tsunami.” She did not elaborate on her fears, but stressed the need for CMR supporters to remain on the alert. Well, at least she told the supporters who bothered to show up to remain on alert. Although the program for the CMR Celebration listed nearly 150 individuals as sponsors or members of the host committee, only 38 individuals actually attended the session. There was no color guard or pledge of allegiance. And close inspection of the audience did not reveal any racial diversity in the room, either. The “gays in the military” panel featured two speakers who have frequently appeared on behalf of CMR, Campbell University law professor William Woodruff, and Army Lt. Col. Bob Maginnis. Maginnis, who retired from the Army in 1993, began his talk by describing his ongoing access to Army G-3 personnel and his personal contact with soldiers in the field. “I talk with soldiers every day,” he stated. He also pointed out his role as a military analyst for Christian broadcasting networks. According to Maginnis, repealing the existing ban on open service by gays and lesbians would “destroy the indispensable glue” of unit cohesion by “introducing sexual tension and favoritism” into military units. He also stated that repealing the ban would result in less unit bonding, less leadership, more sexual diseases, and lower retention. “Soldier religious beliefs will cause retention problems,” he declared. According to Maginnis, “Forcing heterosexual soldiers to serve with open homosexuals would cause many to hang up their boots.” Maginnis described as “extrapolated nonsense” a recent Zogby poll which found most service personnel to be comfortable interacting with gays and lesbians. Asked about a recent New York Times article describing the success of open service in Great Britain, he launched a more detailed attack, starting with the claim that “I meet with the Brits all the time.” On this basis, he stated that the Times story was not accurate, because “British officers will not talk about this issue.” “They’ve been shut down,” he said. He added that in Britain “most gays are shoved into units that don’t deploy,” and that the British case held no lessons for the U.S. because the “British Army is very small.” Professor Woodruff focused on a different argument, relating to the effect and meaning of the 1993 law popularly known as "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell." According to Woodruff, the legislative history of this statute proves that the law was intended to exclude gays and lesbians from the military. Woodruff claims that this goal was subverted by December 1993 Department of Defense enforcement regulations which provide that “homosexual orientation is not a bar to service entry or continued service…” In Woodruff’s view, this regulatory statement is a misinterpretation of the intent of the underlying statute. In remarks following Professor Woodruff’s talk, Donnelly agreed that the 1993 legislation was intended to bar gays and lesbians from service. “The case for gays in the military in terms of military necessity does not hold up,” she said, adding that the “Bush Administration should have gotten rid of the DA, DT regulations.” She went on to emphasize that the number of DA, DT discharges “is comparatively very small; that only a “trivial” number of military linguists have been discharged under DADT; that an Urban Institute estimate that 65,000 gays and lesbians are currently serving the in the armed forces is “phony baloney;” and that the 1999 murder of PFC Barry Winchell at Fort Knox was a tragedy caused in part by the military’s inability to ask questions about servicemembers’ sexual orientation. As for the British experience, statements that open service is working satisfactorily in Great Britain constitute “self-reporting by a powerful minority.” Lt. Col. Maginnis even went so far, during the question and answer period, to say that gay individuals who appear masculine “probably are not the people they say they are.” In Maginnis’ view a man is not really gay unless he displays feminine characteristics or otherwise acts gay. To him, a macho gay man is an oxymoron. As, too, perhaps, is a "celebration" with Elaine and her "friends" . . . but at least we have them worried. - COL Thomas F. Field, USAR (Ret.)

Labels: elaine donnelly

10-09-07