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Commentary
The
wrong side of history
'Don't ask, don't tell' is as
repugnant
as the 'separate but equal' pact
before it
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By
Geoffrey R. Stone, a professor of law at the
University of Chicago and
the author of "War and Liberty: An
American Dilemma: 1790 to the Present."
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This article was originally published
June 12, 2007 in the Chicago Tribune
Americans need to elect a
president in 2008 who can inspire us to be the
best we can be. In that light, I watched last
week's Republican presidential debate with
special interest. The moment in the debate I
found most revealing was when the moderator
asked the 10 candidates to raise their hand if
they believe gay and lesbian Americans should be
allowed to serve openly in the U.S. armed
forces.
Not one of them raised his hand.
At a time when our military is desperate to
recruit qualified men and women, when more than
80 percent of Americans oppose discrimination on
the basis of sexual orientation, and when our
national security depends on our credibility as
a nation dedicated to the values of religious
liberty, individual dignity and equal justice,
it is deplorable that candidates for the White
House still embrace and defend a policy that
excludes tens of thousands of qualified
Americans from military service and denies
patriotic gays and lesbians the right to serve
their nation unless they deny who they are, lie
about their identity and return to the closet.
That sorrowful moment in the debate called to
mind an earlier generation of American
"leaders": the generation of Orval
Faubus, Ross Barnett and Strom Thurmond. Exactly
half a century ago, Gov. Faubus expressed his
concept of "American values" by
calling out the Arkansas National Guard to
prevent nine African-American children from
entering Little Rock's Central High School.
Several years later, Gov. Barnett rose to power
in Mississippi by proclaiming that "the
Negro is different because God made him
different to punish him." A fierce defender
of American values, Barnett ferociously opposed
James Meredith's 1962 admission to the
University of Mississippi, promising that
Mississippi would never "surrender to the
evil ... forces of tyranny."
Sen. Thurmond of South Carolina came to national
prominence when he stormed out of the 1948
Democratic National Convention after the party
endorsed civil rights for African-Americans.
Thurmond declared that he would never
"admit the nigra race into our theaters,
into our swimming pools, into our homes and into
our churches." Racial segregation, he
added, was red-white-and-blue American, for it
was "honest, open and aboveboard."
I don't know whether John McCain, Rudy Giuliani
and Mitt Romney agree with Joint Chiefs of Staff
Chairman Gen. Peter Pace, who recently opined
that gays should not be allowed to serve openly
in the military because he believes that
homosexuality is "immoral."
Perhaps they don't share that belief but are
merely pandering to the extreme right wing of
the Republican Party.
Frankly, I'm not sure which is worse: a
presidential candidate who sincerely holds
beliefs forged at a time when men burned witches
or a candidate who is thoughtful and decent
enough to know that such beliefs have no place
in American law, but who is so cynical that he
is willing to endanger the nation and support
indecency to mollify extremists who still hold
such beliefs.
I recognize, of course, that not everyone
accepts the analogy between discrimination
against blacks and discrimination against gays.
But those who fail to see the power of that
analogy have blinded themselves to reason, in
the same way that Strom Thurmond, Ross Barnett
and Orval Faubus blinded themselves (or
pretended to be blind) to the moral connections
between slavery, racial discrimination and
"separate but equal" laws.
Like racial, gender, age, disability, religious
and ethnic discrimination, discrimination on the
basis of sexual orientation is grounded in
ignorance and immorality. It is a deeply
irrational policy that has no more place in
American law than a rule forbidding Mormons,
Italians, Aquarians or those born on Friday the
13th from serving openly in the military. Our
nation is dedicated to the proposition that we
are all "created equal." It embraces
and celebrates the principles that we are all
endowed with certain "inalienable
rights," that we are all entitled to
"equal protection of the laws" and
that we are all deserving of equal dignity and
respect.
We do not always live up to those principles,
but the history of our nation is one of progress
toward a more tolerant, more open, more reasoned
society. It is a source of righteous pride that
we Americans have overcome the prejudices,
hatreds, fears and narrow-mindedness of those
who came before us.
"Don't ask, don't tell" is not a
policy that reflects true American values. Like
"separate but equal," it is at best a
transitional compromise with bigotry. Perhaps,
for a time, it was a necessary evil. But by
failing now to condemn that policy, the GOP
presidential candidates have shamed themselves,
their party and their nation.
And they are on the wrong side of history.
Copyright
© 2007, Chicago
Tribune
republished
with permission
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