Brightest Hour: Don't Ask Don't Tell... this one's for you Mikey!

For those who don't know already, what is dont ask dont tell?

"Don't ask, don't tell (DADT) is the common term for the policy restricting the United States military from efforts to discover or reveal closeted gay, lesbian, and bisexual service members or applicants, while barring those who are openly gay, lesbian, or bisexual from military service."

Believe it or not these restrictions are government mandated and the DADT policy prohibits anyone who: ["demonstrate(s) a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts" from serving in the armed forces of the United States, because "it would create an unacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability."]

DADT also prohibits any homosexual or bisexual person from disclosing his or her sexual orientation or from speaking about any homosexual relationships, including marriages or other familial attributes, while serving in the United States armed forces.

Now knowing the the basics of DADT I must say why this has not been repealed is seriously disappointing to me. Obama mentioned in his platform that when this issue crossed his desk he would address it, sadly we have seen more efforts to abolish this policy from Lady Gaga than the American President.

The policy explains the reasoning behind it is to ensure unit cohesion and protects the high standards of morale. Asking an individual to keep their entire life a secret from those they are supposed to trust fully will undoubtedly sacrifice unit cohesion!

Now for this risk to the high standards of morale and good order... forcing an individual to keep their life a secret really demonstrates morale and good order, I think not! More than anything else this is discrimination at it's finest and this policy is clearly doing more damage than good.

LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) rights are equally as important as all other individuals, because at the root they are still human, one thing we all have in common. If we were to focus more on what we have in common and how we can work together it would be increasingly more obvious how unnecessary policies such as this are!