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The stupidity of bigotry
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If we really think about it, employment discrimination is the height of stupidity.
An entity that refuses to hire people due to criteria that are irrelevant to their ability to do the job is only depriving itself of talented people who can become valuable assets to the organization. Looked at from this perspective, civil rights laws that ban discrimination on such bases as race, religion, national origin or gender not only protect members of such classes from discrimination, but also protect employers from their own stupidity.
But one area where protection from employment discrimination hasn’t been fully achieved is sexual orientation. While clearly decreasing, there remains plenty of bigotry against gay people, which is one of the major themes of the Christian Right.
This bigotry is enshrined into law in the employment practices of the U.S. military. Back in 1993, President Bill Clinton sought to end discrimination against gays in the military, but ran into a firestorm of opposition from bigots in Congress. Instead of calling out his opponents for the bigots they were, Clinton agreed to a compromise, the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, under which people joining the military aren’t asked about sexual orientation and gays can remain in it as long as they don’t come out in public.
Results of the policy, which was enacted into law, have been idiotic. When a gay person in the military decides to become open about their sexual orientation, they must be discharged. It doesn’t matter if they have critical skills that are in demand, such as being an Arabic translator, doctor or mechanic. Not only is talent wasted, but a lot of money as well, for Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports have found that it has cost U.S. taxpayers more than $200 million to replace service members discharged on the basis of their sexual orientation.
In this context, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” threatens the strength of our national security by prohibiting the military from filling critical shortages within its ranks with openly gay people. It also puts the U.S. well behind the curve, for every other NATO country except Turkey now allows gays in their military.
Given these results, and polls which show that 75 percent of Americans now believe that openly gay people should be able to serve in the military, a move is now afoot to repeal the policy in the form of HR 1283, the Military Readiness Enhancement Act. But while President Barack Obama favors repeal, the discharges continue, with Obama so far refusing to issue an executive order to suspend them while the policy is under review.
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