by Eric Sorensen
Canada doesn't always influence social change in the United States…especially when it comes to America's more conservative social policies.
But Canada – and Canadians – showed the way when it came to gays serving in the military. Canada and other countries did away with this form of discrimination many years ago.
In the early 1990s, the U.S. military was not prepared to do so. In fact, enlistees were still asked whether or not they were gay. Gays were forced either to lie to get in, or tell the truth and be denied the opportunity to serve.
The Clinton administration made some progress, passing the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" legislation to allow gays to serve without lying about it: the military would not ask anymore.
But gays were still required to keep their sexual orientation to themselves…the "don't tell" part. If they admitted they were gay – or if they were "outed" by someone else – they would still be drummed out of the military.
Get breaking National news
The argument was that straight soldiers could not serve effectively with others they knew to be gay, that unit cohesiveness would suffer, and that many soldiers would abandon the military altogether rather than serve with gays.
There was no hard evidence to back up these assertions, but there were plenty of hard feelings expressed about gays to keep "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" in place for the last 17 years.
But during that time, the Canadian Forces was operating without official discrimination, and doing so during one of Canada's most robust missions in decades, in Afghanistan. Yet through the years, Canadian soldiers have acquitted themselves with honour and courage, gay or not.
In fact, U.S. soldiers have been embedded with (so to speak) and have been fighting shoulder to shoulder with Canadians, Brits and Australians and all their gay soldiers for several years.
Art Andrade, 52, left, and his spouse Tom Carpenter, 62, celebrate at their home in West Hollywood, after the U.S. Senate voted to overturn "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" on December 16, 2010. Carpenter, a former U.S. Marine pilot, left the service because he "could not live a lie."
In its exhaustive study of the issue this year, the American military sought out the views and experiences of the Canadian military and others. Contrary to what the Canadian military had feared years ago, eliminating discrimination against gays did not adversely affect unit cohesion. Recruitment and soldier retention was also largely unaffected.
These facts were crucial in knocking down the long-held beliefs that gays in the military are bad for morale and recruiting and fighting.
As the Canadian experience demonstrated, gays are every bit as committed, patriotic and heroic.
The U.S. military brass took note. U.S. Admiral Mullan, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated publicly this year it was time to change the policy.
Die-hard critics of gays serving openly, such as U.S. Senator John McCain, clung to "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" to the end. He said, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
And yet during the 17 years of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," an average of more than 700 U.S. service members per year were forced out. Many were heroes, others provided unique skills that were in short supply, such as Arabic translators. In spite of pressure to deny who they were, many American and Canadian gays put duty first. The first American soldier to lose a leg from an improvised explosive device in the Iraq war was a gay soldier.
Today, at long last, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is finished.
The policy was broke. Canada and others showed how it could be fixed.
Comments
Want to discuss? Please read our Commenting Policy first.