The Dark Side of Don't Ask Don't Tell

Yesterday, a gay sailor was killed at Camp Pendleton. He had mentioned some issues with harassment to his boyfriend, but pretty much couldn;t do anything about it.
The full article is here: http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/jul/01/ca-sailor-death-070109/

This is the bad part of Don't Ask Don't Tell. If someone somehow finds out your are gay and threatens you, there is nothing you can do about it. By reporting it to authorities or your leadership, you in turn are outing yourself and in violation of DADT. Then, you are the one who gets discharged and the person who threatens you gets nothing since he technically did nothing.

People may say this isn't a common occurrence, but I have witnessed it personally. While I was in AWACS, an Air Surveillance Officer had made a comment that he thinks gays should be lynched and left hanging in the trees. No one knew about my being bi while I was in the military. I felt very threatened by this statement. But I could not tell my supervisor. How was I supposed to without revealing my non-hetero status. After all, if I was straight, why should I care what he said?

This is the large problem with DADT. It creates a group of people that are regularly threatened that have no ability to take actions to protect themselves. It is not only an issue of discharging people who voluntarily came out or those that a jilted ex-lover purposely outed you.

And, DADT was one of the largest reasons I chose to end my military career after over 10 years of service. In one instance, I was worried about being found out and losing any benefits my time in service would have provided. In another instance, a good friend of mine was kicked out of ROTC because a girl had mentioned that he was gay. Then the hostile environment of being gay and in the military. Between the threatening comments people make and the bad jokes, it makes for a hostile work environment. Heck, people even got some punishment for making racial, sexual or religious jokes, but sexuality was totally fair game.

DADT has got to go!