Military Times poll shows sharp decline in support for DADT
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Timothy Kincaid
February 7th, 2010military times pollThe Military Times is a newspaper targeted at career military personnel. For the past several years the paper has been surveying its readership on the issue of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Tomorrow they will be releasing the latest results and today they pre-reported the findings.
Opposition to gays serving openly in the military has declined sharply among those wearing the uniform today, the Military Times newspapers will report Monday.
An exclusive survey of some 3,000 active-duty troops shows such opposition has fallen sharply from nearly two-thirds (65 percent) in 2004 to about half (51 percent) today. The survey results appear Monday in Army Times, Air Force Times, Navy Times and Marine Corps Times.
Those opposed to open service will likely latch onto this survey, ignore the trend, and claim that this is conclusive proof that half of America’s servicemen do not want to work with gay soldiers. But, as we noted in 2008, this survey is not even close to being representative of military personnel. In fact, only 47% of the survey participants are currently members of the military.
This latest survey, however is closer to reflecting servicepersons as a whole. The respondants in this year’s poll were on average 4 years younger than those in 2008. And the drop in support for the DADT policy between 2008 and 2010 nearly mirrors that in the drop in percentage of participants over the age of 40, about 10%.
The new survey is also more extensive than prior years. It asks a number of additional questions relating to gay service personnel. After deleting the veterans, lawmakers, family members and others, the following can be gleaned from this non-representative study:
* 95% of participants identify as heterosexual. Around 2% identify as gay or bisexual and the rest ticked the “decline to answer” option.
* Attitude about allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military:14% strongly favor
15% favor
19% neutral
15% oppose
36% strongly oppose
* Of those who oppose open service, 54% believe that sexual oriention is a choice while only 34% of those who favor open service have that belief.
* If the ban were overturned, about 38% believe that gay couples should receive the same benefits as straight couples and about 44% oppose the idea.
* The most challenging issues for the military should the policy be overturned are believe to be reducing harassment against openly gay personnel, and reducing violence and hate crimes against gay personnel.
* 56% know that there are gay people in their unit, 17% do not believe that there are and the rest aren’t certain.
* Of those who found out about a gay person in their unit, 2% reported them up the chain of command.There were also a number of subsets of if-then questions which sought to get opinions about levels of comfort or discomfort. I did not attempt to make meaning of them.
Based on this non-representative survey, it would appear that about half of career military service personnel are opposed to open service, about one third strongly opposed. However, very few are actually willing to end a fellow soldier’s career when the subject becomes personal rather than theoretical.
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Fox News: DADT a failure and absurd
Timothy Kincaid
February 9th, 2010On Fox and Friends Weekend, Col. David Hunt, a Fox military analyst, called Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell an “abject failure”. Fox host Clayton Morris agreed, calling it a civil rights issue and absolutely absurd.
They said Sen. John McCain is “flat wrong.”
hXXp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JW0_rbR2cK8
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Obama's don't ask don't tell triumph
The move towards repealing the US military's 'don't ask, don't tell' policy has been a triumph of political choreography
You don't need me to tell you the number of things the Democrats have messed up in the past year. But lately comes a heartening sign that sometimes, they know how to play this game. The recent rollout of the planned repeal of the US military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy has been impressively choreographed. Not a false step anywhere.
First, stepping back: even the most ardent backers of repeal never thought that Barack Obama would put the matter on his year-one agenda. Simply too much other stuff to do. But then, lo and behold, when I think people weren't necessarily expecting it, he came out (as it were) strongly in his state of the union message in support of repeal. A state of the union address is vetted by and shared with various executive agencies of government, so the Pentagon had to know this was in the speech. Even so, past practice among Democrats on this issue and others like it would indicate that maybe things hadn't been so well worked out – that the Pentagon was dicey, but the president was plowing ahead anyway.
And yet, when Obama mentioned the repeal, Pentagon boss man Robert Gates applauded. In fact he stood and applauded. Then, the day after Obama's speech, the Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell confirmed that the department was working on repeal plans that it would unveil next week. And next week, which is now this week, exactly that happened. Gates and Mike Mullen, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and America's top military man, testified before the Senate yesterday backing repeal. Their positions were already known, but for them to use words as forceful as they did in a Senate forum was something.
Especially so in Mullen's case. Gates is a civilian who will return to civilian life (perhaps soon). But Mullen is a soldier – navy, not army, but a military career man through and through. And he said yesterday: "It is my personal belief that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would be the right thing to do", adding that the current policy "forces young men and women to lie about who they are" as they defend their fellow citizens.
Whoever worked this step-by-step unveiling out will deserve a lot of credit from history when repeal comes. And it does now more like a when than an if. Gates and Mullen will still move somewhat slowly. A commission will spend a year studying the likely effects of repeal. But note that the commission isn't studying whether to do it – merely the effects of doing it. And in that year, not only will soldiers and officers have time to adjust, but so will members of Congress. It's not clear yet whether a repeal would require 60 votes in the Senate. It could conceivably be passed under rules that require only a simply majority of votes, or 51. If it needs just 51, it's likely there already.
But if 60 are needed, it's still problematic. Centrist Democrats are still afraid, and most Republicans are still against. Some are said to be privately supportive of the change, aware that support for the current policy looks increasingly reactionary, especially when the country's top military man is against you. But trying to change those Republican habits is not easy. Here's an argument. A few years ago, you folks were hailing our "coalition of the willing" allies as brave warriors, especially Britain, Spain and Poland, the non-US leaders of the coalition in terms of troop commitments. All three of those nations allow gays to serve openly. So which is it. Are they brave, right-thinking nations or sowers of pusillanimity and self-defeat? The same case could be made viz Israel, which the hawks love and which allows open service.
This will all take time. But the policy will change. And when it does, the Obama administration and the Pentagon will deserve a lot of plaudits for the smooth choreography of the past two weeks. Now let's see them apply that to other areas, please.
