“The armed forces must maintain personnel policies that exclude persons whose presence in the armed forces would create an unacceptable risk to the armed forces’ high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability.”

“The presence in the armed forces of persons who demonstrate a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts would create an unacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability.” These quotes come from Section 654 of the U.S Code’s Title 10.

“When I return home from a long training event, sometimes I simply want to put on my civvies, step outside with my partner, hand-in-hand, and walk through the neighborhood.

Perhaps go for ice cream. I don’t. I am forever on the lookout for my fellow soldiers who live in the same neighborhood and may see me going about the same business everyone else does, except that I happen to be with someone of the same gender.”

-Anonymous, “Confessions of a Gay Soldier”

The “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” or DADT policy was enacted in 1993 by President Bill Clinton, who had promised to allow all citizens to provide military service regardless of sexual orientation.

Though anti-gay sentiments were given a political grounding by the DADT policy, such notions go a long way back. In 1982, the Department of Defense had issued a policy that claimed that gays were incompatible and incapable of military service. Maybe it had something to do with the “high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion” that would clearly have been damaged by the evil forces of homosexuality? Or perhaps people were just stubbornly uninformed about different sexualities, and decided to take their own views and apply it to the military. There is no logical reason behind DADT.

It stems from the poisonous paranoia that was pioneered centuries ago when religion began stigmatizing homosexuality. Gay men were labeled as being creatures of uncontrollable sexual desire, dangerous to any self-respecting straight man. Vague archaic notions about sexuality make up the foundations of DADT, and it has always had varying degrees of opposition throughout its existence. A repeal had been demanded, and promised, by President Obama.

The House of Representatives agreed on the repeal, May 2010, by a satisfying 234-194 vote. Just this month, U.S District Judge Victoria Phillips declared the law an infringement on the right to freedom of speech for all gay service members and deemed it unconstitutional. DADT seemed like it might go down.

However, just last week the law failed to be repealed due to strong opposition from the Senate Republicans and a Senate vote of 56-43, which fell short of the 60 votes required.

This development is absurd, among other things, and as Rachel Maddow succinctly stated, “Republicans had dragged their feet on the procedural stuff merely to mask their own culture warrior opposition to gays in the military,” and pointed out that none of their protests held water.

Soldiers are deprived of many things all in the name of serving their country, and the risks they take and the sacrifices they make may be unfathomable to many of us. However, a gay or lesbian soldier in service also has to renounce a part of his/her identity, and also possibly the ability to acknowledge their significant other as such while in service. Once again, we can turn to our anonymous gay soldier to exemplify this: “I don’t have a picture of my partner posted anywhere in my personal items. I don’t mention his name. He doesn’t participate in family events, or in the life of the community, though he would add so much value.” This man is serving our country. This man is not allowed to be with his loved one, or even give any clue of his existence by the very laws of the country he is serving. And there are more in the same situation as him.

While the disadvantages to the individual gay soldiers are obvious, the disadvantage to the military itself must also be looked at. By discriminating against gays and lesbians, the army shortchanges itself by discharging current soldiers for something that should not be a crime, and by denying admittance to those who could contribute not because of not their actions but who they are. Take for example, the case of Katherine Miller, a lesbian who resigned from the U.S Military Academy despite being ranked ninth in a class of more than 1,100 cadets.

Why? “I intend for my resignation to offer a concrete example of the consequences of a failed law and social policy,” she wrote in her resignation letter on Monday, referring to DADT. Miller’s hardships include, but are not limited to, having to endure sexual harassment so as to not be suspected of being a lesbian and having to lie about her dating history. Despite such often poignant examples, and the obviously antediluvian views behind the law, the DADT policy will remain intact and continue to tarnish the lives of gay soldiers in the USA until the next debate arises.