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Loading ...Fewer vets support ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’
11.10.2009 4:00pm EST
From a press release:
A new study about the U.S. military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy questions the assumption that allowing openly gay and lesbian military personnel to serve in the U.S. armed forces could harm military readiness.
The study surveyed military personnel who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan and found that having a gay or lesbian colleague in their unit had no significant impact on their unit’s cohesion or readiness. The study, by researchers from the RAND Corporation and the University of Florida, was published online by the journal Armed Forces and Society.“Service members said the most important factors for unit cohesion and readiness were the quality of their officers, training and equipment,” said Laura Miller, study co-author and a sociologist at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. “Serving with another service member who was gay or lesbian was not a significant factor that affected unit cohesion or readiness to fight.”
Since the law prohibiting open service of gay and lesbian military personnel is based on the premise that open integration would harm cohesion and readiness, the findings suggest that the U.S. military should revisit the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, said Miller and study co-author Bonnie Moradi, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Florida.
The study found that just 40 percent of the military members surveyed expressed support for the policy, while 28 percent opposed it and 33 percent were neutral—less support than seen in previous surveys.
About 20 percent of those polled said they were aware of a gay or lesbian member in their unit, and about half of those said their presence was well known. In addition, three-quarters of those surveyed said they felt comfortable or very comfortable in the presence of gays or lesbians, according to the study.
The study, “Attitudes of Iraq and Afghanistan War Veterans Toward Gay and Lesbian Service Members,” will appear later in the print edition of Armed Forces and Society. The study was commissioned by the Palm Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Although RAND has done other research on this topic, this study was the product of a contract directly with the researchers and not through RAND. It is available online here.
Miller and Moradi examined information from a 2006 voluntary online poll conducted by Zogby International of 545 U.S. service members who had served in Iraq or Afghanistan. The survey sample was pulled from a national panel composed of more than 1 million members and screened to select service members who had served in Iraq or Afghanistan.
The survey sample included personnel from all service branches and from a mix of ranks and occupations. The majority of respondents were on active duty at the time of the survey, but the sample also included reservists and military veterans.
Researchers found no significant differences regarding attitudes toward gay and lesbian military members among members of the different services. Other findings from the study include:
Compared to previous studies of military members, support for the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” ban continues to decline. The earliest polls in 1993 showed 75 percent agreed with the ban, 8 percent unsure and 16 percent were against it.
The important factors for cohesion and readiness were officer/non-commissioned officer quality, training quality and equipment quality. Beyond these factors, knowing a gay or lesbian person in the unit was not associated significantly with ratings of unit cohesion or readiness.
The most frequently endorsed arguments in support of integrating gays and lesbians were those that prioritized performance and qualifications over exclusionary practices.
Moradi and Miller noted that further research is needed to explore these and some of the other findings of the study, such as the general pattern that high-grade enlisted personnel and officers were more supportive of the ban than low- and mid-grade enlisted personnel. Those who reported prior training on the prevention of anti-gay harassment also were more favorable of the ban than those who had not had the training.
As a heterosexual identifying TS Vet I support the repeal of don’t ask don’t tell but I also realize simply doing that doesn’t help end TS/TG exclusion.So far the President has done a better job of recognizing the need for TS/TG inclusion than hrc and many of my supposedly lgb allies.What gives?
Obama seems to get bills delivered on his desk when he demands them — when he WANTS them. Trillion dollars for the banks? Here sir, please sign. Re-organization of the health sector with billions in subsidies? Here sir – please sign. Re-organization of the financial sector? Here is your bill, Mr. President. A simple repeal of old law, unconstitutional law, a law hurting veterans, a law hurting national security! Rahm! Quick! Tell them the president is powerless: Tell them he does not MAKE law, he only SIGNS the bills. They are weak, compliant idiot gays. They will buy anything we say, and ignore the fact that I can get much larger, complex legislation on my des to sign when I demand them. Tell them that they need to go back to school or something — that they don’t understand how a bill becomes law.”
DA/DT/DP is NOT A POLICY. It is A FEDERAL LAW. Only the United States Congress can rescind the law. A president of the United States does not have this authority. A president attempting to rescind the DA/DT/DP law would be a violation of the Separation of Powers that the drafters of the U. S. Constitution wrote into the document and the representatives of the original 13 colonies ratified. The concept of Separation of Powers is embodied in the U. S. Constitution in the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Articles.
Another commenter posted that Obama needs to have the understanding “to get a simple repeal of a hate law on his desk and off the books”, yet this argument in itself frustrates me to know end. It is well known that it would be very simple for Obama to repeal this policy. He would just have to sign it out of effect and everyone would go about their merry way. That is until someone less liberal becomes president and immediately decides to sign that same discriminatory policy right back into action and rid the military of all those LGBT individuals who had come out. I understand the frustration that this policy, which blatantly goes against the rules of equality, and I agree that Obama needs to work harder to repeal this. I also understand that it’ll take time to get the support he needs to get this sort of discrimination in the military banned permanently.
Studies such as this which prove that support of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is dwindling and that many soldiers themselves don’t care if an openly gay individual serves with them are wonderful. And I think that these sort of things will indeed help make it so that the president cannot just repeal the policy but set a law or some such thing in place so that something like Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell cannot happen again.
This day, thanks for the service of those LGBT veterans, and those who were lost. One day soon your country will respect you.
Does anyone else find it deeply disturbing that an openly practicing Islamic-extremist (a.k.a. the Fort Hood Massacre guy) is allowed to continue serving in the military while gays are dishonorably discharged?!
This to me is more offensive than anything “God is Good” could conceive to spew.
Thank you Fred Stanley, and all others who so bravely put their lives on the line to serve and protect this nation, even when this nation often refuses to serve and protect you.
I am gay and served as a Captain during the Vietnam War. Nobody cared, and all I had to do was a very good job, which I did.
I am gay and served as a Captain in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War. And nobody cared. All I had to do was a very good job and everybody was very happy!!
Anyone else think that maybe another reason that they are dragging to repeal this is the use of DADT in the Sexual Misconduct cases brought up by women in the service?? I mean the rapes and how they twist it to keep them silent?? Without DADT wouldn’t they really have to prosecute these cases instead of dismissing/hiding/burying them??
I hope that they do continue looking into empirical evidence that shows the contradictions involved in the DADT policy. It’s important for our military to work as a cohesive unit- and allowing persecution within the ranks brings us no closer to that. It was nice to see that the low and mid grade enlisted personnel were more supportive of integration- and that views of competency did not decrease even when there was a known gay in the ranks.
I think empirical evidence is what is going to help us most in this fight. Ideas straight from soldiers and veterans mean the most. There is a growing awareness that DADT is more about unfounded fear and hate and less about morale, efficiency, and competency- as studies are clearly showing us that gays in the military effect none of that.
Too bad Obama isn’t a veteran. Then maybe he would have the understanding to get a simple repeal of a hate law on his desk and off the books, instead of letting Rahm treat is as just another political matter, and on the bottom of his to do list at that, right next to “plan presidential library.”