Dog in the Manger

A LONG TIME COMING: The moral of this week’s story is that, given proper preparation and propitiation, sanity — on rare occasion — can be induced to strike. But it doesn’t happen overnight. Try 17 years instead. That’s how long it took to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the Pentagon’s longstanding policy of cutting off its nose to spite its face with regard to gays and lesbians in the armed services. This Wednesday, President Barack Obama held the ceremonial bill-signing to much fanfare. It was the political equivalent of an end-zone dance, culminating what seemed, only a few weeks ago, like a flailing Hail Mary pass that Republicans would easily knock down. Somehow, they didn’t. On Tuesday, Santa Barbara’s Congressmember Lois Capps attended a similar ceremony to celebrate the bill’s enrollment. There wasn’t an empty seat. Capps, who has supported gay rights back before it was politically fashionable in polite society, reported the mood was electric. Given that the new Republican majority is poised to take power in less than 30 days, it was also bittersweet.

On paper, the case for repeal seemed so compelling the real mystery is why there was ever any debate. Absent a draft, any fool could see the United States could not maintain the troop strength required to wage two separate all-out wars simultaneously. Military recruiters quickly found themselves forced to lower the minimum requirements for those seeking to enlist. In time, violent felons came to be accepted. At the same time recruiters found themselves scrounging for new bodies, the military was discharging no less than 13,500 gay men and women just because somebody asked, and somebody told. Some possessed high-level skills — like a facility with Arabic languages — that were in perilously short supply, given the task at hand. Likewise, it became obvious the military brass did not really believe that openly gay and lesbian troops undermined unit cohesion — the core rationale for the policy. Studies revealed that during times of intense combat, the number of discharges based on sexual orientation dropped precipitously. If there are no atheists in foxholes, it turns out there are precious few homophobes there either.

What makes sense on paper and in real life are two different things. Seventeen years ago, homophobia was not so much an attitude as it was a law of nature, akin to gravity, friction, and inertia. Only crusaders and activists challenged it; mainstream liberal politicians avoided the subject as much as possible. Back in 1996, UCSB Religious Studies Professor Walter Capps — Lois’s deceased husband —