My good friend Dan Blatt, of GayPatriot blog, has a worth reading column today at AOL, What's Next for Gays After the DADT Repeal?
Though we disagree on the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT), Blatt neutrally links to and quotes from my previous post, DADT Repeal: What Comes Next? Pentagon Asked, Tells Combat Troops Not To Tell, and I reviewed his draft for accuracy.
Respected defense and foreign policy guru Max Boot writes, as does a combat Marine’s wife, with confidence the able military will adapt, though they opposed the repeal.
For one thing, there may be far fewer gays in uniform than claimed by the pro-repeal advocates. One indication of this comes from data that most of the approximately 14,000 discharged under DADT from the military over the past 17 years were probably not even gay, but slackers who falsely “outed” themselves for an early out.
On the other hand, even with far fewer than expected, there will still be serious additional discipline problems, as the neutrality of DADT shifts to accommodation of gay lifestyles and commanders are pressured to be lenient for their own career sake, and gay activists continue challenges in the courts to reasonable limits.
Blatt points out in his column that no more gay activist legislation should be expected from the new Congress. He, also, pointed out to me that polls show a continuing opposition to legalizing gay marriage. Gay activists have announced, however, stepping up their court challenges to the federal Defense Of Marriage Act (DOMA). Secretary of Defense Gates is cutting weapons programs, and wants to trim personnel costs (particularly benefits), to meet expected defense budget restrictions. The Pentagon report on DADT points out that DOMA is all that limits providing same-sex military benefits for insurance, housing, relocations, basing assignments, etc., at unstated potential costs. This would further pressure key defense procurement and retention programs impacting the top-flight professional forces we’ve built since the end of the draft.
Defense Secretary Gates – who has announced his retirement -- noted that he followed the desire of President Obama to repeal DADT, and Joint Chiefs Chair Mullen may partly be angling for the job in his support of repeal. Their testimony was important to the repeal, while the contrary advice to Congress from the chiefs of the Army, Marines and Air Force were not deemed so by a majority of the rump Congress members. The resentments of ObamaCare’s ramming through Congress are kindled by the DADT repeal, which may heighten resistance to Congressional or court repeal of DOMA, an issue that affects many more gays and their benefits from federal taxes.
So, in the end, the repeal of DADT may be a pyrrhic victory for gay activists, and of no benefit to the effectiveness of our armed forces. Indeed a detriment if only because thousands more slackers will not be discharged, while many competent and dedicated troops will suffer from any infraction of sensitivity toward gays. Already one of the Washington Post's leading columnists writes to his leftist base that the Marine Commandant should be fired, the offense daring to testify honestly from his experience and the Pentagon survey data in disagreeing with immediate repeal of DADT. (Bing West, another top-respected military analyst, calls the WaPo columnist for "Jerry Springer" journalism.)
Tracked: Dec 22, 20:06