Dave Cullen: gays in the military

Salon included me in their classics

Sun, 13 Nov 2005 05:38:35 GMT

This is kind of cool. Salon is celebrating its tenth and anniversary and every day the past week they have been highlighting their top stories from a single year.

I did most of my work for them in 1999 and 2000, and two of my stories made the list each year. The lists for 1999 & 2000.

From 1999, they picked two of my Columbine stories:

”I smell like the presence of Satan”
Is Littleton's evangelical subculture a solution to the youth alienation that played a role in the Columbine killings, or a reflection of it?
By Dave Cullen

Inside the Columbine High investigation
Everything you know about the Littleton killings is wrong. But the truth may be scarier than the myths.
By Dave Cullen

And in 2000 they featured, this two-part series on one of the last bastions of blatant discrimination toward gays in America. (I hate to call it a "gays in the military" story, even though it technically is, because that has phrase has like the mind-numbingly tired politico piece I specifically wanted to avoid):

Don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t fall in love, Part I of II
A rare peek inside the lives of gay military officers, a world filled with staggering sacrifice, loneliness and glass ceilings.
By Dave Cullen

A heartbreaking decision, Part II
Gay officers must choose between personal happiness and the careers they've spent years building.
By Dave Cullen

NOTICE: See you on the weekends

Mon, 26 Sep 2005 18:17:40 GMT

Hey. You might have noticed I'm rarely here during the week these days.

Yes, by design. Trying to keep my focus entirely on my book during the week. Hence the big one-day bursts on Saturdays and Sundays. So look for me then. (Or on Mondays when you get back to trolling the web at the office, while your boss is away. heeheehee.)

OK, better try that bigger:

LOOK FOR ME MOSTLY ON THE WEEKENDS UNTIL THIS BOOK IS DONE!

Occasionally I may stop by in an evening, if I've had a great day and deserve an indulgence, or maybe once in awhile for a quickie. (Like just now. I figured since I was here to let you know this, I could pound out a quick reaction to the Housewives.)

But hopefully you'll see a lot of self-control.

See you Saturday.

Military's highest court declines to end Don't Ask, Don't Tell

Tue, 24 Aug 2004 15:40:41 GMT

Sad, but not over. I just got this from SLDN:

MILITARY'S HIGHEST COURT DECLINES TO STRIKE DOWN SODOMY STATUTE

Court Leaves Open Question Of Constitutionality Article 125

Washington, D.C. In a decision published today, the military’s highest court of criminal appeals declined to strike down the armed forces’ ban on private, consensual sodomy, known as Article 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The court reviewed the statute in wake of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas in June 2003. The Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces left open whether it would declare private consensual sodomy involving service members unconstitutional in future cases. In United States v. Marcum, the court found that the appellant’s involvement with a subordinate took his conduct outside of the constitutional protection defined by the Supreme Court. The court’s opinion is available online at www.sldn.org.

“The court sidestepped the issue of whether Article 125 is unconstitutional,” SLDN Executive Director C. Dixon Osburn said. “In Lawrence, the Supreme Court took a clear and unmistakable view that government intrusion into private intimate relationships is unconstitutional. SLDN will now consider all options regarding further challenges to the military’s statute.”

Counsel for Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) argued in Marcum that the Lawrence decision, which struck down state sodomy laws, invalidated the military’s similar statute. SLDN argued, as the court noted, that Lawrence recognized “a constitutional liberty interest in sexual intimacy between consenting adults in private.” SLDN was joined by Lambda Legal Defense & Education Fund, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the ACLU of the National Capital Area. The law firm of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr LLP represented the organizations.

Marcum was a cryptologic linguist and the supervising noncommissioned officer in a flight of Persian-Farsi speaking intelligence analysts stationed at Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraksa. He was convicted on May 21, 2000 of consensual sodomy and other charges.

After the Supreme Court’s decision in Lawrence, the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces granted appellant the right to challenge to continued validity of Article 125. The court noted that “constitutional rights generally apply to members of the armed forces unless by their express terms…they are inapplicable.” The court suggested that consensual sodomy, by itself, even in the military context, may be within the constitutional protection defined by the Supreme Court. The Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces ruled, however, that the additional aspect of that conduct occurring within the context of a superior / subordinate relationship, took the conduct outside of the constitutional protection defined by the Supreme Court.

The military’s sodomy statute applies to both heterosexual and same-sex consensual sodomy. According to the RAND Institute, 80% of military personnel violate the statute on a regular basis.

In 2001, a blue ribbon panel convened to review the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) also called for repeal of the statute. The Cox Commission, chaired by retired Judge Walter T. Cox III, called military sodomy prosecutions “arbitrary, even vindictive.” The Commission recommended replacing the existing statute with one more closely resembling civilian prohibitions against forcible sodomy, sexual conduct with a minor and other serious criminal offenses.

“Private, consensual conduct in the bedroom has no impact on the battlefield,” Osburn said. “Our country right now needs to fight terrorists, not pry into people’s private lives.”

SLDN noted that the decision has no impact on the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” ban on lesbian, gay and bisexual service members.

Cool new group of active gay military

Tue, 02 Dec 2003 23:47:33 GMT

This is new. Fifteen active gay military men and women have formed a group to fight the ridiculous Don't Ask Don't Tell ban. They call themselves Gay & Lesbian Service Members for Equality: GLMSE.

Finally, a group to fight the ban from within. They have to keep their identities secret, but they're open to reporters to tell their stories. Interesting stuff at their website.

Clinton bashes Don't Ask, Don't Tell--ten years too late

Tue, 07 Oct 2003 19:33:21 GMT

Don't Ask, Don't Tell is celebrating its ten year anniversary, and Bill Clinton has chosen the occasion to bash the policy.

News release from the SLDN site:

In his strongest denunciation of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” to date, former President Bill Clinton says that “Simply put, there is no evidence to support a ban on gays in the military.” The written statement was made to Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) in conjunction with the organization’s End the Witch Hunts national dinner on Saturday. . . .

Well that's great to get his support, but a little hard not to gag on his words.

I am willing to cut Clinton some slack, but he really screwed both gays and the military (in the long run) on this one. Hard to hear him take the strong stand against Don't Ask, Don't Tell now, coming from the very guy who FORCED IT ON US!

Prior to Clinton, any president could have overturned the gay ban with just a swipe of his pen (executive order). But Clinton got this monstrosity enacted into law, and now it will take an act of congress to overturn it.

Thanks Buddy.

Clark Says He Would Have Voted for War--probably

Fri, 19 Sep 2003 10:54:12 GMT

Well this is a suprise. From NYT (similar piece in WP):

Gen. Wesley K. Clark said today that he would have supported the Congressional resolution that authorized the United States to invade Iraq, even as he presented himself as one of the sharpest critics of the war effort in the Democratic presidential race.

General Clark also said in an interview that he would probably oppose President Bush's request for $87 billion to finance the recovery effort in Iraq, though he said he could see circumstances in which he might support sending even more money into the country.

On both the question of the initial authorization and the latest request for financing, General Clark said he was conflicted. He offered the case on both sides of the argument, as he appeared to struggle to stake out positions on issues that have bedeviled four members of Congress who supported the war and are now seeking the Democratic presidential nomination.

General Clark said that he would have advised members of Congress to support the authorization of war but that he thought it should have had a provision requiring President Bush to return to Congress before actually invading. Democrats sought that provision without success.

"At the time, I probably would have voted for it, but I think that's too simple a question," General Clark said.

A moment later, he said: "I don't know if I would have or not. I've said it both ways because when you get into this, what happens is you have to put yourself in a position — on balance, I probably would have voted for it."

OK, I give him major honesty points for confessing something that will probably cost him, and for confessing that he's highly conflicted and sees it both ways. That's how I often feel, and I respect a guy who doesn't live in a clear black and white world. But . . .

If he wants to make it with this campaign thing, he needs to grasp the concept of a sound bite pretty quickly, and come to grips with the fact that we're not all sitting there on the plane with him getting the full discussion. If he wants to run a campaign, he needs to communicate a few powerful ideas and communicate them clearly. Right now he's just muddying his own waters.

He's really going to need to get his act together.

----

Both pieces also have a lot of interesting stuff on his late-in-life conversion to the Dem party, which seems to have begun in 92.

And they gave a few more glimpses on his priorities/agenda. From the Times:

On the plane, General Clark also said he might support changing the "don't ask, don't tell" policy governing the presence of gay men and lesbians in the military.

"I'd like to see the military relook the policy," he said. "I didn't say change it — I said relook it."

For example, General Clark said, the military might examine adopting a "don't ask, don't misbehave" policy patterned after one that he said was in place in Britain. Asked what the "don't misbehave" standard meant, the general responded, "I'm not going to set a policy with you winging it in the back of an airplane."

General Clark said his domestic priorities would include health insurance and rolling back parts of Mr. Bush's tax cuts. "I don't see why we can't have health insurance for every single American," he said.

Asked how he would pay for it, General Clark said he was open to some cuts in the budget he is more familiar with — the Pentagon's. "The armed forces are a want machine," he said. "They are structured to develop want."

Nabokov for the week: Guest blogger, Tim O'Brien

Fri, 22 Aug 2003 19:32:39 GMT

I am so behind on providing your weekly dose of Nabokov. So sorry. And something must be up in St. Petersburg, because another guest author has had to step in again today to perk your day up with lovely dispatches from a foreign land. In honor of Reichen's victory, we take you to a military scene today, the opening paragraph of the extraordinary book, The Things They Carried. It will be my pleasure to transcribe it:

First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried letters from a girl named Martha, a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey. They were not love letters, but Lieutenant Cross was hoping, so he kept them folded in plastic at the bottom of his rucksack. In the late afternoon, after a day's march, he would dig his foxhole, wash his hands under a canteen, unwrap the letters, hold them with the tips of his fingers, and spend the last hour of light pretending. He would imagine romantic camping trips into the White mountains in New Hampshire. He would sometimes taste the envelope flaps, knowing her tongue had been there. More than anything, he wanted Martha to love him as he loved her, but the letters were mostly chatty, elusive on the matter of love. She was a virgin, he was almost sure. She was an English major at Mount Sebastian, and she wrote beautifully about her professors and roommates and midterm exams, about her respect for Chaucer and her great affection for Virginia Woolf. She often quoted lines of poetry; she never mentioned the war, except to say, Jimmy, take care of yourself. The letters weighed 10 ounces. They were signed Love, Martha, but Lieutenant Cross understood that Love was only a way of signing and did not mean what he sometimes pretended it meant. At dusk, he would carefully return the letters to his rucksack. Slowly, a bit distracted, he would get up and move among his men, checking the perimeter, then at full dark he would return to his hole and watch the night and wonder if Martha was a virgin.

Something, isn't he (Tim O'Brien). Nice way into a Vietnam horror show. I'm usually one for plunging right in, but Southeast Asia is a place readers might be hesitant to join him--what a perfect way to draw us across that ocean. My favorite moment was him tasting the envelope flaps, knowing her tongue had been there. What a tiny exquisite touch.

The next paragraph plunges you much more vividly into the battlefield itself, but always in terms of the things they carried. What an incredible way to illustrate what was really important to each of these people: Weight was everything when you were humping miles every day, and the non-essentials that you dragged along just because you needed them--because for you, they were essential--revealed everything about your character.

An extraordinary piece of work.

Reichen signs on to Don't Ask, Don't Tell documentary

Fri, 22 Aug 2003 18:12:30 GMT

I just got a press release from SLDN a minute ago:

Reichen Lehmkuhl of “Reichen & Chip,” the grand prize winners in the sizzling summer series The Amazing Race, has agreed to appear in a documentary film investigating the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. The film, set to start production this fall, will span the ten-year history of the policy and follow the building political momentum to overturn it. Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) will be supporting the project throughout its production. . .

“The Pentagon is firing three people every day simply because of their sexual orientation,” Lehmkuhl said. “If the same thing were happening in corporate America, most citizens would be rightfully outraged. The fact that our nation’s largest employer discriminates against gay Americans under the sanction of federal law is equally appalling.” . . .

For more information, call John Bowab at Morelight Productions, LLC; 310-659-7455.

And don't forget to sign their Lift The Ban petition.

Senior admiral says ending Don't Ask, Don't Tell would strengthen military

Fri, 22 Aug 2003 00:54:42 GMT

Normally, I'm a little reluctant to let one topic dominate all day. I didn't really want to make this national gay day, it just worked out that way. And since it's Chip & Reichen day and all and Reichen is a recent military officer working with SLDN to end Don't Ask, Don't Tell, I could hardly resist this news release from the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military this afternoon:

The retired Judge Advocate General (JAG) for the Navy, Rear Admiral John D. Hutson, has called for the end of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy banning openly gay soldiers from service. In an article published this month in the National Law Journal Admiral Hutson called the gay ban "virtually unworkable in the military." The article argues that the policy is the "quintessential example of a bad compromise," and that the "don't ask, don't tell" regulations are a "charade" that "demeans the military as an honorable institution."

Nice. It gets better:

Admiral Hutson was a Navy Captain in the office of the JAG in 1993 when the current gay ban was formulated, serving as the JAG's executive assistant. In 1997, he became the JAG himself, and it fell to him to enforce the policy. . . . he said he initially supported the policy, concluding that "a satisfactory resolution was impossible then." Since it was hammered out in 1993, however, much has changed. "At that time," he said, "we thought the sky could fall. To completely overturn the policy ran the risk of undermining our ability to complete our mission." But with the benefit of over a decade of experience with the policy, and with what he called a "somewhat more enlightened population, particularly among younger people," he now believes it's time to end the ban. "That was then and this is now," he said. "I am now convinced, as I was not then, that the military could survive" lifting the ban entirely.

And here comes an argument I had not heard before:

"Eliminating the policy on balance now would serve a greater good and in many respects would foster cohesion. Unburdened by this odious policy, the Department of Defense might come out stronger, and more able to defend the country." He explained this was not only because more people could join or remain in the service, but because the public's support of the military could increase. "There is right now what I perceive to be this blemish on [the armed forces], and it ought to be removed. And if it is removed, ultimately the military would feel better about itself and it would be held in even higher regard by removing this fundamental unfairness for a fairly significant population in the country."

That's pretty persuasive. I've been in the military, and public perception of our value made huge difference. Advocates of the ban talk about morale: nothing worse for morale than going home at Christmas and finding your old friends think you're retarded for being associated with the Army, or meeting a woman at a bar off-post and having her turn her nose up when she spots your haircut.

We used to go into town (Columbus Georgia) all the time when I was at Ft. Benning, and the women there wouldn't give us the time of day. It was impossible to find a dance partner, most of them wouldn't even return your hello. That is devastating to morale. Improve the public perception of the institution, and you will do wonders for the morale inside its units.

You should support SLDN because . . .

Wed, 20 Aug 2003 03:37:34 GMT

. . . You might meet Reichen!

SLDN is Servicemember's Legal Defense Network, and they're a great organization working to end Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and providing legal assistance to those men and women being forced out in the meantime. (They are the main org in that area.)

Reichen has apparently been active for awhile now, and here's a picture of him at the group's Red, White and Pool party in June--without his shirt, and without Chip!; ruh roh. Hope Chip just had other committments or was haning out over by the keg. We should learn Friday if there is anything to those persistent rumors.

Support gay marriage & gays in the military

Fri, 15 Aug 2003 07:59:57 GMT

I don't often push petitions, but these two are crucial.

1. A month ago HRC (the Human Rights Campagin) launched its Million for Marriage drive. They are trying to garner a million signatures backing gay marriage. Click to add your name and/or find out more information. They announced today that 131,396 people had signed the petition for civil marriage equality in the first month. We can do better than that. They're also urging you to pass the message on, and to write letters to the editor of your local paper. Think about it.

2. On July 21, SLDN--Servicemember's Legal Defense Network, the main group supporting gay soldiers/sailors/airmen, and advocating the end to Don't Ask, Don't Tell--launched its "Lift The Ban" campaign. Please add your name and check out their organization at LiftTheBan.org.