Between the Lines: Military should throw out policy of secrecy

For 14 years gays and lesbians in the armed forces have been forced to live in secrecy under the Don't ask Don't Tell policy passed under the Clinton administration.

Under this policy of secrecy members of the gay and lesbian community who serve our country are not able to benefit from the privileges their heterosexual counterparts receive. Unlike, heterosexual couples, gays and lesbians in the military are not able to list their partner as next of kin. Therefore, homosexual soldiers hide a major part of their true identity and give up their right to openly love whomever they chose for the greater good of the military and for the love of serving their country.

A lesbian soldier who leaves this spring for Kuwait, taught me that serving your country and loving the job are the most important things. She prepares each day to leave her partner, her son and family. Each day, she hears the reports, and goes home to see the brutality and loss on the news. Still she readies herself.

When she fills out the paperwork before her deployment, she won't be able to name her partner as next of kin. If, God forbid, something happens to her it will not be the woman who wears her ring that will receive the news.

I asked her why she does it, and she just said it was her job and her soldiers. She went further to say that without the military she didn't know what she'd do that she could love as much.

I have stood in the fields of two separate bases, one time saying goodbye and the next saying hello.

I have seen the way the heterosexual couples cling to one another. They embrace and kiss passionately before they board the plane, and a joyful embrace and kiss are always given upon their safe return.

My friends can't do that.

When a gay friend of mine ships out to Iraq this March, his long-time boyfriend won't be able to wrap him in his arms and kiss him. There won't be that last assurance of love and support before he boards the plane to war.

My friend lowers his voice, sticks his chest out and marches in step with the soldiers from his unit. He will not scream he's gay in order to get out of being deployed with his fellow soldiers. He says he can't. He won't leave his unit.

The strength and character of the gay, lesbian and bi-sexual soldiers I have met is awe-inspiring.

I couldn't do it. Though I'd love to serve my country, it's for the most part incomprehensible to me how I could enter an institution that has taken the time to actually ban me from service.

However, I think of the heterosexual soldiers I have met who support their homosexual counterparts.

I met one male soldier, a great man who is serving now overseas. He is a married Republican military man with kids, and to my surprise is for opening up the military.

He is my first, but not my last, example of the changing mentality of the soldiers in our Armed forces.

Politicians and high-ranking generals led us to believe that the military would crumble if homosexuals were to serve openly, but the men and women in the armed services seem to have a different opinion.

A 2006 Zogby International poll showed that 3 in 4 soldiers were personally comfortable in the presence of gays and lesbians, and more than 55% of the troops who know a gay colleague said the presence of gays or lesbians in their unit is well-known by others.

In fact, the 1993 Rand Study, which studied the integration of gays into seven militaries around the world, as well as police and fire units in the United States, concluded that no special restrictions should be given to homosexual military personnel.

At this time, approximately 12,000 soldiers have been discharged under the Clinton-era policy. .

I know that very soon my community will start celebrating victories in our fight for equal protection in the workplace and hate crimes legislation.

I have even begun to put aside my cynicism over a possible victory for gay marriage, and adoption.

Very soon isn't quick enough for the GLBT soldiers in our armed forces, however.

Now in this second session of the 110th Congress, we must overturn this cruel piece of legislation, so that never again will a man or woman who fights for this country have to deny who he/she is.

I urge you to push our leaders to overturn this legislation. We must fight to protect the service and legacy of those who are so patriotic that they would deny who they are to fight under the American flag for us and our way of life.