By Gary Barlow

Staff writer

Just days after President Bush’s nominee for chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff urged Congress to revisit the nation’s ban on openly gay personnel in the military, a group of retired military officers spoke out against the ban in Chicago.

“’Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ is not working, ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ never did work and ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ never will work,” said retired Navy Capt. Joan Darrah. “’Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ is bad for our military and it’s bad for our country.”

Darrah spoke at a reception at the Center on Halsted Aug. 3 to benefit the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a national group that works to end the ban and to assist gays and lesbians in the military. The group also held its national board meeting in Chicago over the weekend.

The military policy popularly known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was enacted in 1993 and in theory allows gays and lesbians to serve so long as they don’t disclose and aren’t open about their sexual orientation.

In practice, its application varies widely and has resulted in more than 11,000 members of the military being discharged.

“There are two people fired everyday as a result of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’” said retired Army Col. Stewart Bornhoft. “The hypocrisy of the enforcement, the duplicity which this law forces on people, the bigotry we see in this country because of this law is unconscionable.”

Darrah was on active duty for almost 30 years but said she lived everyday in fear of her sexual orientation being discovered. She worked in the section of the Pentagon destroyed by the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack and lost friends in that attack. Had she been killed, however, Darrah said her longtime partner wouldn’t have been called because no one in her chain of command knew about her relationship.

“I love the Navy,” Darrah said. “I love our country. But I believe we can do better than ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’”

Retired Army Brig. Gen. Keith Kerr said stories such as Darrah’s illustrate the flaws inherent in the military’s policy.

“When a person can’t be open about some aspect of his or her life, they sense that person is holding something back, and that’s what destroys unit cohesion,” Kerr said.

Kerr said “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is often used as a “weapon of vengeance” to settle personal scores.

“Application of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ is inconsistent throughout the Defense Department,” Kerr said.

Navy Admiral Michael Mullen, President Bush’s nominee to replace retiring Gen. Peter Pace as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress July 31, “I really think it is for the American people to come forward, really through this body, to both debate that policy and make changes, if that’s appropriate.”

That came on the heels of remarks Mullen made to the Brookings Institution in Washington that seemed to invite reconsideration of the law.

“If it’s time to revisit that policy, the American people I believe…ought to raise that issue and we’ll have the debate,” Mullen said. “As a member of the Joint Chiefs and obviously the head of one of the services, I will contribute to that and give my best military advice based on what—the debate that’s going on, and if it changes, it changes. I think that’s the path right now.”

That contrasts with the position of Pace, who told the Chicago Tribune in March that he considers gays to be “immoral.”

The Military Readiness Enhancement Act pending in Congress would end the ban on out gays and lesbians in the military and enjoys growing bipartisan support in Congress. Two of the bill’s 131 Congressional sponsors and supporters, Reps. Rahm Emanuel (D-Chicago) and Jan Schakowsky (D-Chicago), sent statements supporting the bill and SLDN to be read at the reception.

Schakowsky noted that an estimated 65,000 gays and lesbians are serving in the U.S. military and praised Kerr, Bornhoft and Darrah for speaking out against the ban. In a statement read by Mayor Richard M. Daley’s GLBT community liaison, Bill Greaves, Emanuel called the military policy “Don’t Make No Sense.”

“I believe that we should abandon it because it never makes sense to discriminate against individuals who want to serve their country,” Emanuel said.

At the end of the reception, SLDN board co-chair Zoe Dunning presented an “Award of Excellence” to Chicagoan Jean Albright, a retired Air Force master sergeant who serves on SLDN’s national board.