An unscientific Washington Post poll currently shows 67% of respondents checked “yes” to the question, “Is the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ survey out of line?”
Of course, you’re welcome to weigh in with your own opinion, but in a related Washington Post article, “U.S. military says questions about gays would help if ‘don’t ask’ were ended,” WaPo writers Ed O’Keefe and Craig Whitlock say the Pentagon’s survey, “provoked immediate criticism from some human rights groups, which called the survey biased and apt to fan fears of gays in the military.”
“The unauthorized public disclosure of the $4.5 million survey and the fierce reaction to it also prompted the Pentagon to worry that the fallout could skew the results of the poll.”
Several gay rights groups, however, said the survey was biased. In particular, they said the wording of the questions reinforced prejudices and fanned fears that troops would be forced to bathe, room or socialize with gays and lesbians.
Servicemembers United, the nation’s largest group of gay and lesbian troops and veterans, said the survey includes “derogatory and insulting wording, assumptions, and insinuations.”
“The Defense Department just shot itself in the foot by releasing such a flawed survey to 400,000 servicemembers, and it did so at an outrageous cost to taxpayers,” said Alexander Nicholson, the group’s executive director.
Why we are even conducting the multi-million dollar survey is beyond me. WaPo says SLDN apparently agrees:
“Surveying the troops is unprecedented; it did not happen in 1948 when President Truman ended segregation, and it did not happen in 1976 when the service academies opened to women,” SLDN Executive Director Aubrey Sarvis said. “Even when the military placed women on ships at sea, the Pentagon did not turn to a survey on how to bring about that cultural change.”
Just one more example of America putting LGBT rights up to a vote.
As one reader here so eloquently wrote, “substitute Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell with segregation and gay and lesbian with colored, to have the following:”
“If segregation l is repealed and you are working with a Service member in your immediate unit who has said he or she is colored, how, if at all, would it affect how often your immediate unit socializes together off-Âduty?”