On the day that a House Armed Services subcommittee will hold a hearing on the continued viability of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” National Review Online has a good column by Deroy Murdock arguing that openly gay people should be allowed to serve.
Murdock summarizes some familiar developments of the past 15 years that have undermined DADT: more tolerant attitudes toward gays among servicemembers; changing views of military brass; the overriding needs of the country in wartime, especially for certain specialists; the incongruity of enlisting felons while discharging law-abiding gay soldiers with excellent records of service; and the lessons from militaries like Britain’s and Israel’s that allow gays to serve.
He does offer one argument I hadn’t seen before:
The battle-cry “Think of the children” also applies to this issue.
While gay couples and same-sex parents might disagree, gay service members generally are less likely to have spouses and kids awaiting them stateside. Therefore, pro-family conservatives should decry a policy that strips a childless gay soldier of his uniform, but keeps a straight GI in his body armor, far from his wife and kids, on multiple combat tours in Baghdad. Since 2003, NBC News reports, the Pentagon involuntarily has redeployed 58,000 such “stop-lossed” servicemen and women.
Eliminating DADT as pro-family social policy? James Dobson, call your office.