Don't Ask, Don't Tell: A Costly and Wasteful Policy 

摘要

Since the current policy known as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was adopted in the early 1990s, several changes have taken place which call into question the policy's validity. Firstly, the argument proponents of the ban use to justify it, namely that cohesion would suffer if admitted homosexuals were allowed to serve, has been undercut by social science analyses on the correlation between cohesion and performance. Their argument has also been undercut by empirical evidence from several nations that have lifted all restrictions on homosexual service, yet have suffered no decrease in cohesion or performance, despite the reticence of their respective militaries to lift the bans. At the same time, the US public has moved toward a greater acceptance of the notion of admitted homosexuals serving in the military, with 79% approving in a December 2003 Gallup Poll, including 91% of all Americans age 18 - 29. Evidence also indicates the current policy costs at least $40 million per year just to replace those who have been discharged due to their sexual orientation. Other costs include wasted human resources at a time of critical shortfalls in many specialties essential to the ongoing Global War on Terror, and the immeasurable cost of sanctioned unjustifiable discrimination by the US Government. The time to lift all restrictions on homosexual service in the US Armed Forces has come.