SLDN Reports: Conduct Unbecoming: The 5th Annual Report on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Pursue”
by Michelle Benecke & Dixon OsburnThe Pentagon's implementation of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Pursue" is a failure. Anti-gay harassment, asking and pursuits have surged to record levels since Congress enacted this law five years ago. Last year alone, reports of anti-gay harassment more than doubled. Reports of asking and pursuits increased 42%.
These violations are due to lack of leadership. Military leaders have refused to send guidance to the field explaining the explicit investigative limits under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Pursue" and its intent to respect service members' privacy. Military leaders have held no one accountable for asking, pursuits or harassment. As a result, many commanders and investigators do not know the intent or letter of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Pursue." Others deliberately violate the policy, knowing their leaders do not take it seriously.
Service members have no way to protect themselves from harassment or to stop improper investigations. There is nowhere they can turn for help without fear of reprisal. Military leaders have wrongly required service members to keep their sexual orientation a total secret, forcing them to lie about who they are, even to their families, best friends and health care providers.
The result is that discharges under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Pursue" have soared. The Pentagon is firing three to four people every day for being lesbian, gay or bisexual-a total of 1,149 discharges last year alone (Exhibit 1). Gay discharges last year were the highest in a decade, and represent an 86% increase since "Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Pursue" was first implemented. The pink slips the past five years have cost American taxpayers $130 million (Exhibit 2). Many more dedicated, competent service members have left at the end of their terms, fed up with constant fear, dissembling and harassment.
The news under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Pursue" is not all bad. Physical abuse by investigators has declined. Mass investigations have waned. Criminal prosecutions of lesbian, gay and bisexual service members have decreased as more are administratively discharged. While welcome, these steps forward reflect the low baseline used to measure success.
Not all officers and enlisted leaders engage in verbal gay-bashing or snoop on their service members. The current climate, however, supports those who do. Service members experience daily harassment. Comments such as the following are routine in many units: "You'd better not be queer because in the Navy we kill our fags;" "That dyke is going to fry;" "You're a dead faggot;" "There's nothing wrong with killing a few fags;" "That fag (Matthew Shepard) deserved to die;" and "There's nothing to do in Sasebo unless you are a homo killer, " a chilling reference to the murder of gay sailor Allen Schindler in 1992 by shipmates in Sasebo, Japan. These are just a fraction of examples from the cases handled by Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) in the past year.
Leadership from the top down is required to change the incentives, and to support those leaders in the field who try to do the right thing. Military leaders should, as recommended by an April 1998 Department of Defense report on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Pursue," issue the two-year-old guidance on anti-gay harassment that is pending at the Pentagon. Other recommendations in the April 1998 Pentagon report, while welcome, do not address other core issues: privacy, investigative limits, accountability and recourse. Military leaders should send guidance to the field about the policy's intent to respect service members' privacy and its explicit limits to investigations (Exhibit 3). Military leaders should hold those who ask, pursue and harass accountable, and provide recourse to service members who are improperly targeted. Were these steps taken, command violations of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Pursue" would fall.
SLDN's Fifth Annual Report on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Pursue," Conduct Unbecoming, reviews what the policy says, and recaps major developments in the past five years. The report then zeroes in on what happened in the past year, examining the military's failure to implement the core parts of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Pursue" and how that has impacted military readiness. The report also recognizes instances where individual leaders have taken appropriate action on behalf of their service members. The report concludes that, as military leaders struggle with critical retention and recruiting shortfalls, they can ill-afford to violate the letter and intent of the policy, or continue to let the valuable contributions of lesbian, gay and bisexual service members be frittered away by indifference or outright hostility.
