With nearly 150 representatives co-sponsoring a bill to repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell,” with more than 100 retired admirals and generals supporting repeal, and with about 75 percent of the U.S. public wanting the government to lift the ban, you might think the policy doomed.

But we are in our seventh month of probably a 20-month window of opportunity to discharge “don’t ask, don’t tell” into the exosphere, and we have not yet gained enough momentum.

So a road show began last week, a military-themed tour, but not of the old USO variety that Bob Hope and the Andrews Sisters used to headline. The headliners on the Voices of Honor tour include Congressman Patrick Murphy, D-Pa., who served in Iraq and is a member of Servicemembers United, and Eric Alva, the first servicemember wounded in the Iraq War; Jarrod Chlapowski, a former U.S. Army Korean linguist who decided not to re-enlist because he could no longer abide the forced lies, and Alex Nicholson, a former U.S. Army linguist discharged under the policy.

These military veterans – gay and straight – are sharing the first-hand stories about the personal pain and the national harm the military ban causes. The veterans will bring home the ramifications of the policy to muster the voices to bring down “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

How can we aid these veterans in the campaign?

We can bring the issue home to the workplace.

Many of us work without domestic partner benefits or even protection from discrimination based on sexual orientation, but we are not – by force of law or even employee policy – required to lie about our lives to our co-workers and bosses. The U.S. military must be the only employer in the country that explicitly requires such. To not lie can cost a gay servicemember his or her job, career, health and education benefits. To not lie can even cost a gay servicemember his or her freedom.

Talk about “don’t ask, don’t tell” the next time you are at work. If “don’t ask, don’t tell” were put into effect in your workplace today, would you still have your job tomorrow? Would your closest colleague?

Talk about how it would it feel to walk past the employee bulletin board in the cafeteria or outside the bathrooms and notice a newly posted memo that reads, “New regulations on homosexual conduct.”

The memo – similar to the one issued by the Defense Department with the implementation of “don’t ask, don’t tell” 15 years ago – states, “Sexual orientation is considered a personal and private matter, and homosexual orientation is not a bar to service entry or continued, service unless manifested by homosexual conduct.”

The memo further states, “The three bases for separation are homosexual acts, same sex marriages, and statements by an individual that he or she is a homosexual or bisexual. In the latter case, the individual has the opportunity to rebut the presumption of homosexual acts by demonstrating that he or she does not engage in homosexual acts and does not have a propensity or intent to do so.”

What does your employer mean by “conduct” and “activity”?

Talk about how it would feel to open an e-mail message on an office computer to find a directive from your supervisor to attend an all-employee meeting on the new policy. And how it would feel to sit next to co-workers as the boss explains the rigors of the job, the importance of teamwork, good order and discipline and then here the boss proclaim, “Persons who demonstrate a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts would create an unacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion.”

Furthermore, your boss explains, any employee who “attempted to engage in, or solicited another to engage in a homosexual act or acts” or “has stated that he or she is a homosexual or bisexual, or words to that effect” shall be fired.

Servicemembers are the nation’s defenders, but they also are employees.

“Don’t ask, don’t tell” is bad military policy – our veterans will deliver that message this summer.

“Don’t ask, don’t’ tell” is an un-American policy – our civil rights advocates will deliver that message this summer.

And “don’t ask, don’t tell” is bad employment policy – we can deliver that message to many this summer.