Report sheds light on policy

A report released Tuesday by the University of California
examining the cost of the U.S. military’s “don’t
ask, don’t tell” policy toward gays found that the
government spent $363.8 million over the course of nine years to
implement the program.

The “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy,
initiated by the Clinton administration in 1994, allows gays and
lesbians to serve in the U.S. Armed Forces as long as they do not
disclose their sexual orientation or engage in homosexual
activities while in the military.

The UC Blue Ribbon Commission found that between 1994 and 2003,
the federal government spent $363.8 million on the release of 137
service members as a result of the “don’t ask,
don’t tell” policy.

This total includes the cost of training the service members who
were released, which was considered to be wasted money, as well as
recruitment and training of replacements for those who were
discharged.

These numbers are drastically different from the results of a
similar report conducted by the U.S. Government Accountability
Office in 2005. The GAO reported that the policy cost $190.5
million ““ $173.3 million less than the commission’s
figure.

The UC report found some key errors in the GAO’s analysis,
such as omitting various costs and using unrealistic figures.

The GAO report also didn’t include the value the military
received from gay and lesbian service members prior to their
discharge.

The findings of the Blue Ribbon Commission provide policymakers
working to repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell”
with evidence suggesting flaws in the policy.

“The conventional justification for “˜don’t
ask, don’t tell’ has been that allowing gays to serve
undermines military readiness. Now we have the numbers to prove
that the policy itself is undermining our military
readiness,” Congressman Marty Meehan, D-Mass, a member of the
House Armed Services Committee, said in a statement.

Meehan argues that turning away competent, willing servicemen
and women during wartime does not make sense.

Meehan has been working on repealing the “don’t ask,
don’t tell” policy and replacing it with the Military
Readiness Enhancement Act, which was introduced in March 2005 and
states that the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland
Security cannot discriminate based on sexual orientation. It would
also authorize service members who were discharged from the armed
forces for homosexuality or bisexuality in the past to return to
active duty. The act is still pending in Congress.

During the 12 years Meehan has been campaigning to repeal
“don’t ask, don’t tell,” he has repeatedly
used studies conducted by the UCLA School of Law to support his
cause and provide financial reasons for repealing the policy.

Gary Gates, a senior research fellow at UCLA’s Charles R.
Williams Project on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy who
served as the Blue Ribbon Commission’s senior project
consultant, said the presence of high-level dignitaries such as
former Secretary of Defense William Perry and former Assistant
Secretary of Defense Lawrence Korb on the committee gives
“strong evidence for a culture change within the
military,” with more acceptance for gay service members.

Meehan said a change in perspective among top military officials
and the pressure of depleting numbers of servicemen and women in a
time of war may combine to pass his bill in Congress.

“By discharging competent service members at a time when
our troops are already stretched thin, the “˜don’t ask,
don’t tell’ policy incurs hundreds of millions of
dollars in unnecessary costs and purges highly skilled, critical
personnel from the service,” he said.