Sexuality and the Military Today

My first entry discussed how gender impacted the anti-war peace movements that took place during The Vietnam War, and World War II. The previous entry also discussed how gender impacted social situations, and the anti-war peace movement, but did not discuss too much about the idea of sexuality. Today, sexuality plays a huge role in the way that our military handles things. This is especially true when it comes to concepts such as The Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Policy, and current military policies regarding the treatment of homosexual couples.

One of the main ways that the idea of sexuality ties into the military in modern times is the “Don’t ask don’t tell” policy. The title of this policy is fairly self-explanatory. It was enacted on December 21, 1993 and was the “official United States policy on gays serving in the military.” The basic idea of DADT was that people who wanted to serve in the military were not asked to disclose their sexuality, and as long as they were not openly gay or lesbian they were allowed to serve. According to the article  "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell: A Dying Policy on the Precipice" from the academic journal Scholarly Works: the policy prohibited “people who demonstrate a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts from serving in the armed forces in the Unites States because their presence would create an unacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability.” That is a pretty long-winded way of saying that men and women may be distracted by, and uncomfortable about, the idea of serving with gays and lesbians in the military. The language of this policy made it sound as if those who wrote it had the best interest of military members at heart, but in reality it was just a way to openly discriminate against people for their sexuality. There’s really not much of an excuse for it. I find it disgusting that our military would have openly discriminated against members of the LGBT community in such a fashion. Luckily though, the policy was repealed on September 20, 2011. Ultimately the policy didn’t really make much of a difference because people who were homosexuals never mentioned in the past. In essence this means that for years and years gays and lesbians were serving in the military but just kept it a secret. All the policy really did was give members of the military legal grounds to dismiss homosexuals. I personally am glad that it was repealed. To openly discriminate against homosexuals in this way is a violation of their constitutional rights and should not be an act carried out by such an important part of our government.

Current policies regarding homosexuals in the military are constantly changing. One of the huge debates that is currently taking place is what to do about homosexual couples who are in the military and have partners that are not. An article in The New York Times titled: “Military Benefits to Be Extended to Homosexual Couples” discusses the mess that is going to be created when it comes to deciding whether or not homosexual couples in the military are able to receive the same benefits as straight couples. The article also discussed the idea of how military benefits would work for military members who are in legal homosexual marriages. One of the ideas that was presented in the article is that if gay marriage is legalized in certain states, military members from that state would be able to give their same-sex-spouse benefits that heterosexual couples get. The issue with that idea is that people in homosexual relationships from states that do not allow same sex marriage are being blatantly discriminated against. The other question brought up in this article is whether or not people who have been in the military from states that have not previously allowed gay marriage, but do now, are entitled to back benefits. I personally believe that everyone who has not received benefits should be entitled to them for however long they served, and that since the government is not supposed to discriminate against people based on sexuality all homosexuals in the military should receive benefits for their partners. It is an interesting situation, and I suppose that only time will tell how it will all pan out. According to the article, “it seems that things are heading in a direction where it will be ‘all or nothing’ when it comes to benefits for military members who are in homosexual relationships or marriages.” I also tend to believe that we are finally headed in a direction that will allow all people in the military to be treated equally and that, ultimately, the military would not give zero benefits to married homosexual couples- and would then have to extend the same benefits to all homosexual couples. It is going to be extremely interesting to see where things go from here. 

-Crystal Feska- 

Works Cited

Correales, Robert I., "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell: A Dying Policy on the Precipice" (2008). Scholarly Works. Paper 90.
http://scholars.law.unlv.edu/facpub/90

"Military Benefits to Be Extended to Same Sex Couples." New

                        York Times. N.p., 25 Mar. 2012. Web. 20 Apr. 2013.