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The Military Readiness Enhancement Act

H.R. 1246

The U.S. Military: Where It's Illegal for Gay People to Be Honest

"Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Pursue, Don’t Harass" (DADT) – the current policy prohibiting gays and lesbians from serving openly in the U.S Armed Forces – is the only law in the country that forces people to be dishonest about their personal lives or be fired or possibly imprisoned.  This discriminatory policy hurts military readiness and national security while putting American soldiers fighting overseas at risk.  As of January 2008, more than 12,000 Americans have been dismissed under DADT.  This does not include the many who voluntarily decided to leave the military due to DADT.

In January 2007, General John M. Shalikashvili, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former supporter of DADT, the lift of the ban is inevitable.  "When that day comes, gay men and lesbians will no longer have to conceal who they are, and the military will no longer need to sacrifice those whose service it cannot afford to lose."



DADT Hurts the Military and the Nation

  • Nearly 800 specialists with critical skills have been fired from the U.S. Military under DADT including 323 linguists, more than 55 of whom specialized in Arabic (Government Accountability Office (GAO) report). 
  • At least 65,000 lesbian, gay and bisexual Americans are already protecting our homeland. (Urban Institute report).  More than 10,000 have been discharged under DADT since the policy was implemented in 1993.
  • American taxpayers have paid between $250 million and $1.2 billion to investigate, eliminate, and replace qualified, patriotic service members who want to serve their country but can’t because expressing their sexual orientation violates DADT (GAO report).  That money could be better spent on at least a dozen Blackhawk helicopters, armored plates for tanks and Humvees, or Kevlar body armor for troops. 
  • U.S. military forces need every American who is willing to serve due to the major overseas deployments required by operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

 

Americans Support Allowing Gays and Lesbians to Serve Openly

A large majority of Americans support the right of service members to serve openly and honestly, and the majority of service members are comfortable serving alongside gay and lesbian troops. 

  • 79% of Americans consistently support allowing gays to serve openly (CNN May 2007 and Boston Globe May 2005 surveys).  In 2003, FOX News reported 64 percent support, and the Gallup organization 79 percent, on a similar question. 
  • Nearly 3 in 4 troops (73%) say they are personally comfortable in the presence of gays and lesbians  (Zogby International & the Michael D. Palm Center 2006 study).
  • 1 in 4 U.S. troops who served in Afghanistan or Iraq knows a member of their unit who is gay.  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 (Zogby International).  The DADT policy serves no purpose as troops already know and are comfortable serving alongside gays and lesbians.

 

Open and Honest Service by Gays and Lesbians Works

  • All published Pentagon studies, including the 1993 Rand Report, conclude that there should be no special restrictions on service by gay personnel.
  • 24 other nations, including Great Britain, Australia, Canada and Israel, already allow open service by gays and lesbians, and none of the 24 report morale or recruitment problems.  9 nations allowing open service have fought alongside American troops in Operation Iraqi Freedom.  In addition, 12 nations allowing open service fought alongside U.S. troops in Operation Enduring Freedom. 
  • 23 of the 26 NATO nations allow gays and lesbians to serve openly and proudly.  The United States, Turkey, and Portugal are the only NATO nations that forbid gays and lesbians from serving openly in the armed services.
  • Federal CIA, FBI, DIA and Secret Service agents all serve proudly as openly gay and lesbian personnel fighting the war on terrorism.

Countless gay, lesbian and bisexual Americans have and will continue to serve in the U.S. military with distinction. The only question is whether they will have to lie about their sexual orientation to do so.  Since enactment of the "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" policy, numerous gay and lesbian troops have served openly while pending discharge with no affect on unit performance, readiness, cohesion or morale.  Moreover, U.S. military personnel are already serving side-by-side with openly gay service members – with no identifiable negative effects – in and from countries throughout the world.  Former Defense Secretary, William Cohen agrees - the ban is discriminatory and, "we're hearing from within the military what we're hearing from within society, that we're becoming a much more open, tolerant society for diverse opinions and orientation." 


What is the Current Status of the Bill?

The Military Readiness Enhancement Act (MREA) remedies this discriminatory and unworkable policy and replaces DADT with a policy of non-discrimination.  Rep. Martin Meehan (D-MA) reintroduced the bill (H.R. 1246) in the 110th Congress in February 2007.   Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) took over as the lead sponsor of MREA following Rep. Meehan’s retirement.  As of July 2008, the bill had 143 House cosponsors.

 

Related Pages

 

Other Organizations that Support MREA



For more information, please contact legislation@hrc.org.

 



Last Updated: Monday, July 21, 2008