The first hearing
in 15 years on the military's controversial "don't
ask, don't tell" policy prohibiting gay and lesbian soldiers
from serving openly was held in the U.S. House of
Representatives Wednesday. The hearing before the
Military Personnel Subcommittee, part of the House
Armed Services Committee, was the first since "don't ask,
don't tell" was enacted in 1993.
The hearing featured five witnesses, three in
favor of repealing the ban (retired Army major general
Vance Coleman, retired Navy captain Joan Darrah, and
retired Marine staff sergeant Eric Alva) and two in
favor of keeping it (Elaine Donnelly, president of the
Center for Military Readiness; and retired Army
sergeant major Brian Jones).
Coleman led off
by speaking of his experience as an African-American in
segregated units in the 1950s. Darrah spoke of the fear she
felt under "don't ask, don't tell," knowing that no
matter how good she was at her job, someone could out
her at any point and she'd be fired. She recalled
being in the Pentagon just minutes before a plane struck it
on 9/11, killing several of her colleagues, and how
her partner, not listed among her emergency contacts
or in any other paperwork, would've been the last to
know about Darrah were she among the casualties too.
For his part,
Alva, the first American soldier wounded in the Iraq war
(and a former Advocate cover man) told of how
his colleagues, who knew he was gay, tended to him after he
stepped on a land mine. Far from being a threat to
unit cohesion -- one of the underlying assumptions of
"don't ask, don't tell" -- his sexual orientation,
Alva said, didn't matter at all when his fellow soldiers
came to his rescue.
On the opposing
side, Donnelly articulated various complaints with ending
"don't ask, don't tell," including the notion that open
service by gays would lower the morale of those
members of the military who oppose it. She also
referred to a certain "passive-aggressive" look that
some gay people give heterosexuals. Jones, meanwhile,
expressed concerns about soldiers of the same sex
huddling together "skin to skin" to stay warm in
freezing temperatures. In those situations, he said,
"arousal" would not be acceptable.
Overall,
subcommittee members seemed sympathetic to the plight of gay
soldiers, and several, like Rep. Susan A. Davis
(D-California), the subcommittee's chairwoman,
clearly called for repeal. Other members seemed
less inclined to overturn the ban, like Rep. John M. McHugh
(R-N.Y.).
"By and large, I
thought the majority of the members, the majority of
the [witnesses], focused on the real issues," Aubrey Sarvis,
executive director of Servicemembers Legal Defense Network,
said afterward. "We had differences, but by the end of
the day, it was a terrific beginning for us in the
House and the Senate."
Sarvis added that
he expects more hearings on "don't ask, don't tell" in
both chambers of the next Congress starting in 2009 and
expressed his belief that the policy will be repealed at
that time. "I believe the votes are gettable and
that this thing can be won, and I think it can be won
in the next Congress," Sarvis said.
A House bill to repeal "don't ask, don't tell"
currently has 143 cosponsors. A companion
bill in the Senate has not yet been
introduced. (The Advocate)
