Former Sen. Sam Nunn, in a phone interview last week, seemed to offer his possible support to efforts to undo the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.
“If they can mitigate the damage and make sure the military can properly administer (the repeal) in a fair way, but in a way that protects unit cohesion and the morale of our forces, then I would favor making whatever changes are necessary,” Nunn said.
Nunn was the demagogue who is partially responsible for the hideous Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell policy that is currently wrecking lives and making our nation less safe. In 1993, Nunn used his position as a U.S. Senator from Georgia to scare Americans about openly gay people serving in the military. He toured submarines to show the close quarters, invoking the irrational fear that the presence of gays would turn the ships into sodomy subs.
For this reason, I
vehemently opposed him when his name was floated as Barack Obama’s possible Secretary of Defense.
In terms of Nunn changing his mind, this would be a powerful blow to the discriminatory law. It follows Colin Powell also changing his mind, which adds weight and momentum to a potential policy change.
However, I still have to quibble with the idea that allowing openly gay people to serve would hurt morale in any way. The only people it might affect are emotionally stunted closet cases with sexual hang-ups. No normal, psychologically healthy, fully-functioning heterosexual male would ever give a damn about gays in the military. Thus, we must craft our military policy around mentally sound people, not to protect those who are unhealthy and might have a neurosis around sexual orientation issues.
We need to protect our country. Not the emotional frailty of insecure people who hide behind prejudice to mask their personal issues.
