Service Members Still at Risk under New DADT Instructions
Despite mainstream media reports that service members can no longer be outed by “third parties,” it’s important that the 66,000 lesbian, gay, and bisexual service members understand that they can still be fired under DADT – even if outed by so called “third parties.”
We recognize that the new DoD Instructions (learn more here and here) further define what “credible information from a reliable source” may mean, but based on SLDN’s preliminary analysis, we cannot guarantee that service members are protected.
The updated language does not change the fact that statements, acts, or same-sex marriage, are still grounds for discharge under DADT, including:
A service member can still be fired if outed by his or her parents;
A service member can still be fired for revealing his or her sexual orientation while making a statement to the police that would prevent or help solve a crime;
A service member’s middle school teacher can still out the service member 10 years after he came out to her in social studies class;
A service member can still be discharged if he reports that someone has threatened to kill him for being gay;
A service member can still be fired for hugging someone of the same sex;
A service member can still be fired for getting married; and
A service member can still be fired for saying she would like to return from Iraq to care for her dying girlfriend.
SLDN can say that under the new Instructions, LGBT service members can now safely talk to psychotherapists and clergy, in their professional capacities; safely talk to a medical professional in furtherance of medical treatment or a public health official in the course of a public health inquiry; and safely seek professional assistance for domestic or physical abuse.
While the psychotherapist, chaplain, and other medical professional protections might not greatly decrease the number of discharges under the law, the 66,000 lesbian, gay, and bisexual service members serving in the US and deployed to war zones around the world can breathe a little more easily… The impact of the rest of the changes has yet to be seen.
But one thing remains the same. At the end of the day, until Congress changes the law, lesbian, gay, and bisexual service members will continue to be fired simply for who they are.
For more information, service members should contact SLDN for legal advice.
04-08-10 By Aaron Tax, SLDN Legal Director |
3 Comments
Comments for this entry are closed.Dino in Washington, DC on April 12, 2010 at 08.08 pm
We need to lobby congress and let them know that the new rules are only a very small step forward and servicemembers can still be discharged under this new DADT. As Bill said, the Senate Armed Services Committee will vote sometime in mid to late May on whether to add the Military Readiness Enhancement Act (MREA) to the Defense Authorization Bill. There are seven US Senators who sorely need to be lobbied. They are Jim Webb (D) Virginia, Evan Bayh (D) Indiana, Robert Byrd (D) West Virginia, Ben Nelson (D) Nebraska, Bill Nelson (D) Nebraska, Scott Brown (R) MA, Bill Nelson (D) and George LeMieux (R) both from Florida. If you live or know people in those states, be sure and work on them to call, write, email and fax again and again and then some.
Bill on April 09, 2010 at 08.04 pm
These new standards put a few bureaucratic obstacles in the way of firing a few more hundred LGBTs from among the 60,000+ who are currently serving with honor and competence. The standards may be, however, just a small bone thrown to the community when in reality a “slow walk” is going on with a hope for a more conservative Congress after the November election (and after the DOD “report” that is not due until December). The only reasonable solution is an end to DADT with THIS year’s Defense Authorization Bill. That will happen only if the President fully appreciates that he really is Commander-In-Chief and if Congress, as a whole, gets a spine and sets aside a bit more of its too frequent hypocrisy. The December “report” will then give guidance enabling complete implementation. Leadership is really the key to change. Old military leaders who continue to overtly resist change should be politely and firmly retired, or should just go away to wallow in their chronic homophobia.
Michael @ LeonardMatlovich.com on April 08, 2010 at 05.58 pm
BRAVO to SLDN for issuing this common sense guide. Too much of both gay & mainstream media continue to confuse the expectation of what the announcement would include with what it actually did.
Note, too, that, contrary to expectation, the motivation of the person who outs a servicemember remains fuctionally irrelevant. One isn’t going to “get a pass” simply because it was done with malice.
Real life examples: under the new regs, assuming their accusers were willing to make their statements under oath, Bleu Copas, Margie Witt, Mike Almy, Victor Fehrenbach would all still be subject to discharge, with only the hope that the general/flag officer authorized to initiate a fact-finding inquiry or separation proceeding would choose to “look the other way.”
There will be a few such instances, of course, just as there have always been since the ban started during WWII.
But as Pentagon General Counsel Jeh Johnson said, the bottomline remains:
“If there is compelling evidence that a person has engaged in homosexual conduct, I would not expect that these new regs would make a difference.”
NB: They did not make the changes consistently coherent, but, drilling down, it’s clear that “conduct” functionally remains = to simply BEING gay under the new regs, and the burden to prove one does not have a “propensity” to engage in actual acts remains the burden of the accused servicemember.