Tag Archives: Don’t Tell

LZ Granderson says, ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Frees Up Everybody.’

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from CNN: Opinion article by LZ Granderson

Grand Rapids, Michigan — A couple of years ago, while interviewing members of the Los Angeles Lakers, I had the pleasure of looking like an idiot on camera.

I was asking four of the team’s youngest players about what it’s like to be rich and famous in L.A., and who was their Hollywood crush. After some joking and bantering between the players, Ronny Turiaf, who now plays for the Knicks, turned the tables and asked me aboutmy Hollywood crush.

I hesitated — not because I wasn’t sure of the answer but because I wasn’t sure he wanted to hear it. But the more I awkwardly tried to deflect the question, the more persistent Turiaf became. Eventually, I felt as if I had no choice but to answer, and so with the ESPN cameras fixated on my slightly perspiring face, I blurted out the one name I always give when someone asks me that question — Hugh Jackman.

Funny, I’ve been openly gay for nearly 15 years and still every other day I find myself coming out of the closet; the byproduct of a society groomed to believe it’s impolite to ask and too personal to tell.

For much of the 1980s and into the 90s, it was hard to hear the word “gay” and not think about AIDS, in large part because those two words were so regularly linked in the media. For a lot of people that remains true, even though the disease has long been proven not to discriminate.

Today, after hearing the phrase “don’t ask, don’t tell” for nearly two decades on TV, and reading it in newspapers and online, the word gay has been couched as an “over-share” and asking is an “invasion of privacy.”

Yes, the repealed law was targeted at men and women in the military, but its inherent admonishment to “assume everyone here is straight and don’t say otherwise” seeped its way into the public’s consciousness. “Gay” went from being associated with a disease to a word you shouldn’t say.

Hearing the phrase “don’t ask, don’t tell” over and over subliminally encouraged secrecy. Even though we’ve grown accustomed to seeing gay characters on TV, many of us still tend to whisper when talking about gay people in real life. Why?

Because we’re all supposed to be straight and if you’re not, you’re not supposed to volunteer the information. If asked, you’re not supposed to tell. “It’s private,” we say, which is really just a euphemism for “I’m scared.”

But straight people “ask” and “tell” all of the time without thinking about it — through wedding announcements, or flower deliveries on Valentine’s Day. At the office, when a woman talks about visiting her boyfriend’s family for Christmas, who accuses her of ramming her private life down someone’s throat? But if the same conversation happens and “he” becomes “she,” all of a sudden she is metaphorically riding a motorcycle in between cubicles, braless, with an 8-foot rainbow flapping behind her.

It’s a double standard that’s only going to go away when we stop assuming and start asking and telling. But by asking and telling, I don’t mean “Are you gay?” followed by “Yes, I am,” like defendants on trial, but rather by answering harmless questions without the need to switch pronouns.

By asking and telling, I don’t mean speaking in a hushed, cloak-and-dagger fashion as if we’re sharing a juicy piece of gossip, but in the same monotone drone we use when talking about having bologna for lunch again.

President Obama can sign a bill into law. The judicial system can enforce it. But only everyday people can breathe life into the greater, cultural and personal significance behind the “don’t ask, don’t tell” repeal. And that is, we don’t have to hide.

By inquiring about my celebrity crush, Turiaf wasn’t invading my privacy and me telling him the truth wasn’t a TMI moment. We were just having a conversation.

Now, whenever I look back at that footage, I can tell from his and the other players’ faces that Wolverine wasn’t exactly the answer they were expecting to hear. But I can also tell from my face that I wasn’t expecting what the athletes did after that — nothing.

Not a slur, barely a pause and no one walked out.

We just moved on to the next name on people’s list, which was Beyonce, and then on to another topic.

To this day, those two minutes remain one of my most embarrassing times on camera. Not because I had to tell complete strangers I was gay, but because I assumed they would have a problem with it once I did. I respected them as athletes, but didn’t give them much credit as people. My distrust, my assumptions about them were caught on tape for the world to see.

I guess after so many years of a wintry reception it was hard for me to leave my coat behind, even in sunny L.A.

I’m sure there are many other GLBT people and allies who feel they can’t leave their coats behind. But the truth is “don’t ask, don’t tell” will soon be officially dead … and with that comes the thaw.

The opinions in this commentary are solely those of LZ Granderson.

The original article can be found here: http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/12/22/granderson.dadt.gays/index.html

The Repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”

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From the New York Times, by: Sheryl Gay Stolberg
WASHINGTON — The military’s longstanding ban on service by gays and lesbians came to a historic and symbolic end on Wednesday, as President Obama signed legislation repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the contentious 17-year old Clinton-era law that sought to allow gays to serve under the terms of an uneasy compromise that required them to keep their sexuality a secret.

“No longer will tens of thousands of Americans in uniform be asked to live a lie or look over their shoulder,” Mr. Obama said during a signing ceremony in a packed auditorium at the Interior Department here. Quoting the chairman of his joint chiefs of staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, Mr. Obama went on, “Our people sacrifice a lot for their country, including their lives. None of them should have to sacrifice their integrity as well.”

The repeal does not immediately put a stop to “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Mr. Obama must still certify that changing the law to allow homosexual and bisexual men and women to serve openly in all branches of the military will not harm readiness, as must Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Admiral Mullen, before the military can implement the new law. But the secretary and the admiral have backed Mr. Obama, who said ending “don’t ask, don’t tell” was a topic of his first meeting with the men. He praised Mr. Gates for his courage; Admiral Mullen, who was on stage with the president during the signing ceremony here, received a standing ovation.

While there is still significant resistance within the military to the change in policy, especially within the Marine Corps, at least one proponent — Representative Barney Frank, the openly gay Democrat from Massachusetts — insisted on Wednesday that this latest effort to integrate the armed services will go more smoothly than did racial or gender integration.

“Reality will very soon make it clear that there is nothing to worry about,” Mr. Frank said. He called the signing the biggest civil rights moment in the nation since the signing of voting rights legislation in the 1960s. “If you can fight for your country, you can do anything,” he said.

In the years since President Bill Clinton first enacted “don’t ask, don’t tell” in 1993, some 17,000 service members have been discharged under the policy. While many gay people in the military are now breathing a sigh of relief, the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, which represents soldiers facing charges under the policy, is warning its members that they are “still at risk” because the repeal will not take full effect until 60 days after Mr. Obama, the defense secretary and admiral certify readiness.

“The bottom line is DADT is still in effect and it is not safe to come out,” the organization said.

For Mr. Obama, the ceremony — held at the Interior Department because the White House is tied up with holiday tours — marked yet another in a string of last-minute, bipartisan legislative triumphs, a surprising turnaround in the wake of the self-described “shellacking” his party took at the polls last month. He had already signed a bipartisan tax deal into law, and the Senate appears headed on Wednesday to approve a new nuclear arms pact with Russia, which will give him a significant foreign policy victory as he wraps up the first half of his term. He looked relaxed and upbeat as he soaked up the energy from an enthusiastic crowd.For the gay rights movement, which has been frustrated with the pace of progress under Mr. Obama, Wednesday marked a celebratory turning point. “Thank you, Mr. President,” someone shouted, as Mr. Obama took the stage, prompting a round of other shouts: “Chicago’s in the house, Mr. President! You rock, Mr. President!” Mr. Obama pronounced himself overwhelmed.

The audience for the ceremony included a who’s who of gay activists, among them Frank Kameny, who was fired from a civilian job as an Army astronomer in 1957 — an act that prompted him to found a gay rights advocacy organization in Washington D.C. and to file a lawsuit which went all the way to the Supreme Court. In 1965 he picketed the White House, in the first ever demonstration there by gays.

Now white-haired at 85, Mr. Kameny also served as an enlisted Army soldier; he signed up in May 1943, he said, three days before he turned 18, and saw “front line combat” in Germany during World War II. He said he was asked if he had “homosexual tendencies” and denied it. “They asked, and I didn’t tell,” he said, “and I resented for 67 years that I had to lie.”

Link to the article is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/23/us/politics/23military.html?ref=politics