[Vision2020] March for gay Marriage Costs Sailor Her Career

[Tom Hansen]

>From the August 14, 2006 edition of the Army Times -

And yet the unanswered question remains:

Of those 58,007 names on the Vietnam Memorial Wall, how many belong to gay 
soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines?

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March for gay marriage costs sailor her career
10-year veteran hopes to help turn ‘don’t ask’ tide

By William H. McMichael
Army Times Staff writer

She loves the Navy and by all accounts is an excellent sailor. But policy is 
policy. And after publicly admitting she’s gay, Rhonda Davis was booted out 
for violating the Pentagon’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

Davis, 36, a mass communications specialist first class with 10 years of 
service, was discharged in late July.

“I’m not against the military, and I’m not some crazy rule-breaker,” Davis 
said in her soft Virginia drawl during a recent interview. “It was just time 
to make a statement about this, I think, just to get people talking about 
this policy. And I think that’s what’s actually happened. They may only talk 
for another 10 minutes. But that’s enough.”

Don’t ask, don’t tell is the popular term for the Defense Department policy 
that prohibits asking service members about their sexual orientation — 
unless a command receives “credible information” about possible 
homosexuality. But the policy mandates separation if service members state 
publicly that they are gay and affirm that they’ve engaged in homosexual 
sex.

Davis, who was assigned to the public affairs office of Naval Recruiting 
District New York, took perhaps the most public route possible. On June 3, 
she marched in a rally to support gay marriage. In New York City, across the 
Brooklyn Bridge, in the rain. In uniform. And then gave interviews to two 
broadcast stations admitting she is gay.

“I got up that day and I had jeans on,” she said. “And I said, ‘I want to go 
in uniform.’ People go to these gay pride parades, and the news covers them, 
and they show the stuff on TV, some ‘dykes on bikes,’ wearing leather chaps 
and stuff. And people think that’s who we are.

“I wanted to … show people that here’s some legitimacy to the whole thing,” 
Davis said. “Here’s somebody who supports the right of everybody to get 
married. And I’m in the military.”

Two days later, her commander gently confronted her in the office, an 
apparent transcript of Davis’ broadcast remarks in hand. He wanted to hear 
it from her: Did she publicly admit she is gay?

“That was me,” she says she replied. In that case, he told her, he had no 
choice but to administratively separate her.

The Pentagon policy dates to February 1994 and is grounded in federal law. 
>From 1993 to 2003, 9,488 service members were separated for homosexual 
conduct, according to a February 2005 Government Accountability Office 
report. Of those, 73 percent were male, 27 percent female.

More recent data from the Defense Department show that the total number of 
separations for homosexuality through 2005 was almost 11,000.

Supporters of the policy argue that homosexuality is incompatible with 
military service and say allowing gays to serve openly would degrade unit 
cohesion and “good order and discipline.” But it is opposed by many gay 
activists who call it a weak compromise that requires gays to keep their 
sexual orientation secret and provides no protection for gays who want to 
confide in another service member.

Of the 9,488 discharged service members through 2003, some 83 percent were 
booted for stating or admitting they were homosexual.

“The policy is policy because it’s based in law,” said Lt. j.g. Karl Lettow, 
a Navy spokesman. “To change the policy would require the law to be changed. 
She violated the policy, and she’s acknowledged that.”

Last year, a bill was introduced in the House that would overturn the policy 
and replace it with one of “nondiscrimination on the basis of sexual 
orientation.” The legislation is pending.

Davis is not the only service member to take a stand against don’t ask, 
don’t tell. Air Force Reserve Maj. Margaret Witt, a decorated flight nurse 
with 19 years of service, sued the Air Force and Defense Secretary Donald 
Rumsfeld after her service launched administrative discharge proceedings 
against her because of homosexual conduct.

Witt argued in her lawsuit that she never revealed her sexual orientation 
and kept her sexual behavior separate from her military life.

A federal judge dismissed the case July 26, but Witt plans to appeal.

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"Patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the tranquil 
and steady dedication of a lifetime."

--Adlai E. Stevenson, Jr.