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History > 2016 > USA > Gay rights (I)
An Openly Gay Man Runs the Army
MAY 21, 2016
The New York
Times
Sunday review
Editorial
By THE
EDITORIAL BOARD
Last week an
openly gay man, Eric Fanning, became secretary of the Army. Read that sentence
again and contemplate what it reveals about how much and how quickly American
society has changed. Only five years ago, openly gay people were barred from
serving in its armed forces. During Mr. Fanning’s lengthy confirmation process,
his sexual orientation was simply not an issue. That is a tribute to those who
fought so hard to repeal the ban, and a measure of the nation’s at times
uncertain, but as yet unfailing, march toward equality.
In retrospect the fight that convulsed this country over whether gay Americans
should serve in uniform seems senseless, almost absurd. Yet it is instructive,
if only because a Pentagon plan to allow transgender Americans to serve openly
in uniform remains stalled by a similar, albeit quieter, debate.
There is broad agreement that prohibiting openly gay people from serving was a
cruel policy that abetted bigotry. It legitimized the notion that being gay was
shameful and incompatible with the valorous profession of arms. It cut short the
careers of talented people who had been performing vital work in wartime, which
weakened the military.
It is embarrassing now, even shocking, to revisit the arguments and laments of
those who sought to keep the military gay-free.
In 2007, Gen. Peter Pace, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told
The Chicago Tribune, “I believe homosexual acts between two individuals are
immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts.” A year later, Elaine
Donnelly, who founded an advocacy group that has sought futilely to keep
military personnel policy frozen in the mores of the 1950s, warned during a
congressional hearing about “a sexualized atmosphere in our armed forces.” She
expressed alarm about “forced cohabitation” and the spread of H.I.V.
Two years after that, when Congress appeared to be on the brink of repealing the
ban, Gen. James Amos, then the commandant of the Marine Corps, cautioned that
openly gay troops would be a distraction that could cost lives on the
battlefield. “We’ve got Marines at Walter Reed with no limbs,” he pleaded in a
last-ditch effort to keep service members in the closet. Senator John McCain
indulged the general’s fearmongering. “Today is a very sad day,” Mr. McCain said
somberly during the Senate debate on Dec. 18, 2010, as he acknowledged that he
and other like-minded lawmakers had been outgunned.
The policy was repealed without a hitch. It didn’t result in weakened unit
cohesion, lower morale or missing limbs. As service members came out to their
supervisors, they were embraced. “Millennials just don’t care about sexuality
the way past generations did,” said Lt. Col. Paul Larson, a straight Army
infantry officer. “The rest of us didn’t care. We all knew gays were serving
with distinction.”
The controversy over lifting the exclusion of openly transgender service members
has been less caustic and less public. After Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter
pledged last July to repeal that ban within six months, a few senior military
officials pushed back. They steered clear of framing their misgivings on
morality grounds, instead voicing concerns about “military readiness” and unit
cohesion. Gen. Mark Milley, the Army chief of staff, has been one of the leading
skeptics at the Pentagon. In a recent interview, he said that “serious,
significant issues need to be completely vetted and studied” before transgender
people are allowed to serve openly. “I have to focus on the readiness of the
force,” he said.
Those concerns cannot be indulged any longer at the expense of the civil rights
and dignity of Americans who volunteered to serve in wartime. There is every
reason to believe that repealing the transgender ban will be seamless. The
Pentagon already has a blueprint of what it would take. Mr. Fanning, who was the
first senior defense official to endorse military service by openly transgender
people, is well positioned to help overcome the lingering misgivings of those
upholding the Pentagon’s last discriminatory personnel policy.
“I’m ecstatic,” said Staff Sgt. Patricia King, a soldier in Colorado Springs who
was the first person in the infantry to transition on the job.“To know that the
secretary of the Army is supportive of open trans service, supportive of me not
only as a soldier but as a person, is a comforting feeling.”
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A version of this editorial appears in print on May 22, 2016,
on page SR8 of the New York edition with the headline:
An Openly Gay Man Runs the Army.
An Openly Gay
Man Runs the Army,
NYT,
May 21, 2016,
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/22/
opinion/sunday/an-openly-gay-man-runs-the-army.html
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