On Tuesday, the fight for LGBT rights took a new turn when the Pentagon announced it was proactively changing the discharge status to “honorable” for hundreds of service members who were expelled for being gay during the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” campaign . era.
When then-President Obama signed the repeal of DADT in 2010, it came with a promise.
“Tens of thousands of Americans in uniform will no longer be asked to live a lie,” the president said.
But thirteen years after repeal, many who served their country in uniform were still dealing with the pain of a dishonorable discharge. Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said he considered it a betrayal of ideals.
“To stay true to what we tried to do by getting rid of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ it’s not just about the future. It’s also about making sure we correct the past,” Panetta said.
That’s why Tuesday’s announcement was so important to so many.
“Of the more than 13,500 individuals who were administratively separated under the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy and who served long enough to receive a merit-based characterization of service, 96% are now honorably discharged,” the Pentagon said. Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh.
As recently promised, the Pentagon has upgraded the discharge status of virtually all eligible service members it has reviewed who were released during the “don’t ask, don’t tell” period, without even having to ask to ask.
The change to “honorable” status could be of great significance to service members. It could provide benefits such as home loans, health care, GI Bill tuition assistance and even access to some government jobs that were previously denied.
“This is a big day!” said retired USN Commander Zoe Dunning. “It’s 800 people, so it doesn’t sound like a large number of people. But the fact that the Pentagon itself took this initiative, the fact that the Pentagon proactively went through this data and just automatically released it, is a huge sign. shows a willingness to make the effort to right that wrong.”
Dunning retired from the Navy after surviving two discharge hearings after coming out as a lesbian in 1993. She said she’s not sure why they let her stay, but she remembers the pain of it.
“At my first discharge hearing, where they voted unanimously to kick me out of the military – not because of behavior, not because of poor performance, simply because I said out loud who I am – it was a punch in the gut. she said. “I had served my country honorably and had the best job ratings. And just by saying, ‘This is who I am,’ they so quickly turned 180 degrees and initiated dismissal proceedings against me. It was really hard to comprehend and difficult to accept.”
Dunning says there is still much to be done to achieve true LGBT inclusion in the military, but she believes current efforts are sincere.
“Today’s news shows that the Pentagon is indeed prepared to address and correct past mistakes,” she said. “And hopefully they will continue that effort.”
Dunning says it’s possible this could lead to a widespread exoneration of anyone who has ever been fired for being gay. It would take a lot of paperwork to investigate every case of dishonorable discharge, but it also took a lot of effort to build those cases in the first place.
