Don't Ask Don't Tell Ended

It's funny how a policy can be enacted with the higher motive of allowing a group to escape persecution and yet, because of the prejudice of other people, be used ironically to further persecute members of that group. Such was the case with the "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy that President Clinton signed off on in the 1990's. Initially designed to allow gays to engage in military service without the military authorities automatically singling them out for disciplinary action, instead the military used the new rule to intrude even more heavily into its members' sexual lives, with many drummed out of the service or forced to keep their sexual orientation underground. Now that rule has been rescinded. Good riddance. I wonder what devices the homophobes in our military will use now to bully gay people serving in its ranks. After all, a rule change may be good but it doesn't signify a general attitude change.

I have discovered, through my often tortuous walk through life, that if you are out of the mainstream in any way, sooner or later some aggressive, intrusive element in society will call you out and try to persecute you for it. Even if your "deviation from the norm" is simply an intrinsic part of your own basic makeup, with little or no effect on others, no matter how trivial it may seem. And even more so if you appear to be all alone, which is really the prime driving force in all cowardly bullying and highhanded criticisms, not the actual "deviation" itself. Gays since 1969 have discovered that there is strength in unity, organization, and numbers, so for them I am glad that this abused rule for military service has ended. Still, I think persecution will continue: as mentioned earlier, you can't change people's hearts with just the stroke of a pen...