Don't wait, don't study

"Don't ask, don't tell" may be on its last legs. President Obama says the law should be repealed. The Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have agreed, but they want a year to study the "impact" of such a change before Congress acts.

I suppose it sounds naive, but what exactly is there to study? Australia, Austria, Bahamas, Belgium, Britain, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland -- that's the list as of 2003 -- make no distinction between gay and straight enlistees. None of their armies has collapsed from internal dissension. Israeli soldiers, for example, are not generally considered effeminate or ineffectual; their battalions aren't torn by conflicts over sexual orientation. If we need to "study," why not simply look at the experiences of virtually all our allies?

A 2009 poll showed that 59 percent of the American public agree that gays and lesbians should be permitted to serve in the military. Today's Fox News poll shows that "only" 59 percent of its voters oppose abolishing the policy. A Fox News poll will usually show that 85 percent of its readers support "drawing and quartering" as the preferred means of capital punishment, and believe that their school children should be armed with AK-47's for both recreation and self-protection. So even the right wing is giving ground.

Public attitudes have changed, and studies have shown that those changes in attitude are shared by men and officers in uniform as well.

The Associated Press today reports an interview with a former Army staff sergeant, injured in Afghanistan, who said that most soldiers already knew that some members of their units were gay. "Nobody cares. Don't ask, don't tell is kind of a joke," he added.

The time has come. The people affected will be those gays and lesbians already serving effectively in the armed forces, men and women who are respected and trusted by their fellow servicemen. No one suggests that there will be a sudden flood of West Hollywood hairdressers and interior designers, lining up to enlist in the eager hope of being shipped out to Afghanistan. What the change will do is put a stop to the present loss of badly needed personnel, including, notably, skilled translators fluent in both English and Arabic, many of whom have been discharged over this issue during the past few years.

An election year may seem a bad time to push a socially divisive change through Congress. But every year is either an election year or almost an election year. Abolishing "don't ask, don't tell" is fair to the individuals involved; it will also be good public policy, for the military and for the nation as a whole.