Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, known as DADT

By Jacquie By
Bridonneau, 2BTraduction, Member
of the American Translators Association and of Trans'missions Europe

No, this is not a variation on the “Show and Tell”
activities we all conducted when we were in grade school. Nor is it some kind
of new poker game, as it may sound like. Don’t
Ask, Don’t Tell is a catch-phrase coined in the United States under the
Clinton Administration to encapsulate US military policy regarding the
admission of gays or lesbians into the fighting forces.  The policy it reflected (Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Harass, Don’t Pursue in its full name)
was passed into Law back in 1994. This legislation achieved a compromise
between those wishing to maintain the policy of banning men and women with
same-sex or bisexual orientation and those who favoured admitting them to the
armed forces. Under the new legislation, gay and lesbian conscripts could no
longer be questioned about their sexual preferences (Don’t Ask), but were
prohibited from disclosing their sexual preferences (Don’t Tell) and would not
be discharged solely on the grounds that 
they were gay (Don’t Pursue).  Engaging
in sexual acts with members of the same sex would still be grounds for
discharge from the military.

The act prohibits any homosexual or bisexual
person from disclosing his or her sexual orientation or from speaking about any
homosexual relationships, including marriages or other familial attributes,
while serving in the United States armed forces. The "don't ask" part
of the policy indicates that superiors should not initiate investigation of a
service member's orientation in the absence of disallowed behaviors, though
credible and articulable evidence of homosexual behavior may cause an
investigation.

The roots of same-sex prohibition in the US armed
forces date back almost to the founding of the USA. It was intended to regulate
who could serve in the US army, and under what conditions, along racial and
sexual lines.  Way back in the
Revolutionary War, blacks were not allowed to serve in the Continental army,
and later, during the Civil War, they were also barred from military service,
even though there were many volunteers. 
These decisions were later reversed, especially when the British offered
freedom to slaves who agreed to serve.

As a consequence, more and more blacks entered
military service, but it took a long time for them to be treated as equals to
whites.  In World War I, African-Americans
usually did not fight alongside their white counterparts, and served in menial
jobs.  In World War II, there was often
segregation, with black units having black officers, but this situation
gradually changed as it was recognized that African-Americans could fight just
as well as their white fellow citizens. 
And this is where the DADT act comes in: 
it too reflected a growing liberalization of attitude on the part of the
military authorities.

In the early 80s however, this decision was reversed
by the Department of Defense (DOD) with a new policy that clearly stated that
homosexuality was incompatible with military service, leading to some 12,000
people being discharged for that reason. 
This of course, came as a huge financial cost to the national budget,  with severance pay and training of new
recruits, not to mention the loss of precious Arabic language translators and
interpreters.  By the end of the decade
however, advocates of gay and lesbian rights began to challenge this policy, until
finally President Clinton and his government reached his DADT compromise.  And compromise is the key word here – on one
hand, gay people could not be discharged just because they were gay, as long as
the sexual orientation of the person in question did not become known to the
authorities or to fellow-soldiers. The new  law never really worked properly, and it satisfied
no one.

President Obama, pledged to repeal DADT in  his presidential campaign pledge to repeal
this act and to remove all restrictions on the conditions under which gays and
lesbians could serve. In n his State of the Union address at the end of
January, 2010, openly called for the State to repeal this policy. “[We must]
repeal the law that denies gay and lesbian Americans the right to serve the
country they love because of who they are. It's the right thing to do,"
Obama said.

At the end of March, the Pentagon issued regulations
limiting the cases in which gays could  be dismissed from the US military, while
waiting for a congressional debate on this subject.  In this new situation, only high ranking
officers will be able to initiate and oversee investigations, and evidence may
no longer rely exclusively on hearsay.

Army Secretary, John McHugh did
however state: “Until Congress repeals ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ it remains the Law
of the land and the Department of the Army and I will fulfill our obligation to
uphold it.”  And the Secretary of
Defense, Robert Gates, who favors the eventual repeal of the ban on gays
serving openly in the military, has asked Congress to give troops a chance to
express their views as the Pentagon studies potential changes. He wants the
Pentagon to first finish its review of the effect of any potential changes and
develop an implementation plan.

For a view favoring
further liberalization, see the Huffington Post:

What the Changes to DADT Mean:
The Good, The Bad and the Politically Dangerous