Secretary of Defense Robert Gates wants the “Don’t ask don’t tell” (DADT) law repealed, despite the fact that 1,167 retired military leaders including 51 four-star generals signed a letter supporting the law. This open letter was delivered to President Obama on March 31, 2010. The letter concludes with:

Our past experience as military leaders leads us to be greatly concerned about the impact of repeal on morale, discipline, unit cohesion, and overall military readiness. We believe that imposing this burden on our men and women in uniform would undermine recruiting and retention, impact leadership at all echelons, have adverse effects of the willingness of parents who lend their sons and daughters to military service, and eventually break the All-Voluntary Force.

The commandant of the Marine Corps said: “The potential for damage is there…A repeal would absolutely have an impact on combat units…so my concern goes back to their issues of cohesion and the burden on those units.”

The Army Chief of Staff General George Casey stated a repeal would “add another level of stress to an already stretched force.”

Yet the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Adm. Mike Mullen thinks repealing DADT during a time of war would allow it to go mostly unnoticed by the troops.

“There is no legal or military rationale for the current law, only prejudice.” said Christopher Neff of the Palm Center, an advocacy group based in California.

The opponents of the DADT law and most of the media have overlooked discussing what the law really says and the history of why it is necessary for such a policy. Not to mention the fact that the armed forces are not a democracy. The armed forces represent less than one percent of the entire population of America. Our military should not be forced to submit to the laws of “civilian society” that would undermine its mission.

It has nothing to do with prejudice it has everything to do with the mission of the military, with unit cohesiveness, morale, and discipline. Just read the first 15 paragraphs of the law.

Public Law 103-160, Section 654, Title 10

Policy concerning homosexuality in the armed forces

FINDINGS. –Congress makes the following findings:

(1) Section 8 of article I of the Constitution of the United States commits exclusively to the Congress the powers to raise and support armies, provide and maintain a Navy, and make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces.

(2) There is no constitutional right to serve in the armed forces.

(3) Pursuant to the powers conferred by section 8 of article I of the Constitution of the United States, it lies within the discretion of the Congress to establish qualifications for and conditions of service in the armed forces.

(4) The primary purpose of the armed forces is to prepare for and to prevail in combat should the need arise.

(5) The conduct of military operations requires members of the armed forces to make extraordinary sacrifices, including the ultimate sacrifice, in order to provide for the common defense.

(6) Success in combat requires military units that are characterized by high morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion.

(7) One of the most critical elements in combat capability is unit cohesion, that is, the bonds of trust among individual service members that make the combat effectiveness of a military unit greater than the sum of the combat effectiveness of the individual unit members.

(8) Military life is fundamentally different from civilian life in that –

(A) the extraordinary responsibilities of the armed forces, the unique conditions of military service, and the critical role of unit cohesion, require that the military community, which subject to civilian control, exist as a specialized society; and;

(B) the military society is characterized by its own laws, rules, customs, and traditions, including numerous restrictions on personal behavior, that would not be acceptable in civilian society.

(9) The standards of conduct for members of the armed forces regulate a member’s life for 24 hours each day beginning at the moment the member enters military status and not ending until that person is discharged or otherwise separated from the armed forces.

(10) Those standards of conduct, including the Uniform Code of Military Justice, apply to a member of the armed forces at all times that the member has a military status, whether the member is on base or off base, and whether the member is on duty or off duty.

(11) The pervasive application of the standards of conduct is necessary because members of the armed forces must be ready at all times for worldwide deployment to a combat environment.

(12) The worldwide deployment of United States military forces, the international responsibilities of the United States, and the potential for involvement of the armed forces in actual combat routinely make it necessary for members of the armed forces involuntarily to accept living conditions and working conditions that are often spartan, primitive, and characterized by forced intimacy with little or no privacy.

(13) The prohibition against homosexual conduct is a long-standing element of military law that continues to be necessary in the unique circumstances of military service.

(14) The armed forces must maintain personnel policies that exclude persons whose presence in the armed forces would create an unacceptable risk to the armed forces’ high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability.

(15) The presence in the armed forces of persons who demonstrate a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts would create an unacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability.

The above presents a strong argument for not having homosexuals in the military. The “Don’t ask don’t tell” policy is a misnomer. There is only one sentence in the law that fits the DADT definition and would result in separation from the armed forces: “the member has stated that he or she is a homosexual or bisexual.”

Then there is a conflicting paragraph at the end of the law titled “SENSE OF CONGRESS” which seems to say the Secretary of Defense can reinstate questioning about homosexuality if he considers it appropriate.

“(1) the suspension of questioning concerning homosexuality as part of the processing of individuals for accession into the Armed Forces under the interim policy of January 29, 1993, should be continued, but the Secretary of Defense may reinstate that questioning with such questions or such revised questions as he considers appropriate…”

The law also contains language that requires members of the armed forces to be separated if the member “…has engaged in, attempted to engage in, or solicited another to engage in a homosexual act or acts… That the member has married a person known to be of the same biological sex.” None of this has to do with DADT.

There have been policies prohibiting homosexuals from serving in the military since the beginning of WWII, the policy in effect before 1993 stated:

Homosexuality is incompatible with military service. The presence in the military environment of persons who engage in homosexual conduct or who, by their statements demonstrate a propensity to engage in homosexual conduct, seriously impairs the accomplishment of the military mission. The presence of such members adversely affects the ability of the Military Services to maintain discipline, good order, and morale; to foster mutual trust and confidence among service members; to ensure the integrity of the system of rank and command; to facilitate assignment and worldwide deployment of service members who frequently must live and work under close conditions affording minimal privacy; to recruit and retain members of the Military Services; to maintain public acceptability of military service; and to prevent breaches of security.

It seems to me that there is a great deal of logical reasoning to keep the law and a great deal of naïve, uninformed, and illogical reasoning to repeal it. Does anyone know if the President and the Secretary of Defense have even read Public Law 103-160, Section 654, Title 10. If so how could they possibly justify repealing it? Another question remains, if the law is repealed what will take its place? That is a subject for even more controversy.