Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, sadly, is now history. And its demise is
being celebrated by the media as a milestone on the march to “civil
rights” and “equality” for gay men and women.
But in fact, just as with same-sex marriage, DADT has never been
about civil rights or equality. Lesbians and homosexuals have
always enjoyed the same legal rights and protections as every other
American — including the right to serve in the U.S. military,
albeit not openly as gay men and women.
Indeed, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was a very reasonable
and legitimate compromise measure that protected the integrity
of the U.S. military’s unique warrior culture, while still allowing
gay men and women to serve.
Given that sexuality (unlike race or ethnicity) is a profound
behavioral characteristic, and given that the U.S. military fights
as a team or unit, and not as individuals, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
made eminent sense.
Unfortunately, the U.S. military took its cues from the
politicians and was no match in any case for the raw political
power of the gay lobby.
Conservatives, meanwhile, mostly sat out this fight and
acquiesced in the left’s attack on this, one of the last remaining
bastions of cultural conservatism.
Many of these conservatives will come to regret that they were
AWOL in the DADT fight. And that’s because now that the left has
weakened and subdued the U.S. military, its confidence level has
skyrocketed. Thus it has set its sites set on bigger game. Its next
big target: the institution of marriage.
“Now that DADT is behind us, it’s time to go get DOMA, don’t you
think?” tweeted
Delaware Democratic senator Chris Coons.
“There are still issues concerning benefits that have nothing to
do with the legacy of DADT and everything to do with DOMA, the
so-called Defense of Marriage Act,”
warns the Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart. For
example,
because of DOMA, the surviving same-sex spouse of a service
member is out of luck in receiving the same considerations a
surviving straight spouse. You better believe there are plans in
the works to right this wrong…
As I’ve
written
here at the American Spectator, I am not optimistic
that conservatives and traditionalists can prevail against the
awesome political and cultural power of the gay lobby. Our
political challenge lies in distinguishing between tolerance and
acceptance on the one hand, and affirmation and approval on the
other hand.
In our rights-based political culture, that’s not an easy
distinction to make. And it’s especially difficult to make that
distinction when you are afraid to explain why anyone has
legitimate reason — rooted in morality, aesthetics, and public
health — not to put homosexuality on a legal and social par with
heterosexuality. Yet, that is something which conservatives seem
unwilling or unable to do. Consequently, they (we) are losing big
time politically.
