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Hearing next week on don’t ask

The House Armed Services Committee will hold a hearing next week on the impact of the controversial “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that bans military service by people who are openly gay.

This will be the first formal hearing on the issue since Congress enacted the law 15 years ago.

Aubrey Sarvis, executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a gay-rights advocacy group in Washington, praised Rep. Susan Davis, D-Calif., “for her leadership in reviewing this obsolete law.”

Davis chairs the House Armed Services military personnel subcommittee.

Sarvis said the hearing will launch “a conversation about the national security impact of losing qualified, capable service members.”

The subcommittee will hear from three former service members at the July 23 hearing: retired Army Maj. Gen. Vance Coleman, retired Navy Capt. Joan Darrah and former Marine Staff Sgt. Eric Alva, a 13-year veteran who SLDN says was the first American wounded during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Alva was medically discharged, according to SLDN.

Coleman and Darrah serve on SLDN’s Military Advisory Council.

“Don’t ask, don’t tell,” enacted in November 1993 and implemented by the Pentagon in February 1994, bars commanders from asking service members about their sexuality — unless a command receives “credible information” about possible homosexuality.

But it mandates separation from service for those who state publicly that they are gay and affirm that they have engaged in homosexual behavior.

According to SLDN, more than 12,500 service members have been discharged under the policy since it was enacted; the Pentagon, which only began tracking such discharges in 1997, says it separated 9,888 service members under the policy through 2007.

Supporters of the policy argue homosexuality is incompatible with military service and that allowing gays to openly serve would degrade unit cohesion and “good order and discipline,” particularly in the field, where little or no privacy is possible.

Gay activists counter that the policy is a weak compromise that requires gays to keep their sexual orientation secret, provides no protection for gays who want to confide in another service member and deprives the military of trained, skilled people.

Those discharged include more than 300 linguists, advocates note.

With national polls showing Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., holding a steady lead over Republic candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., advocates of repealing the law are hopeful that change could be in the air.

Obama has said that he favors ending the policy, calling it counterproductive. McCain believes the policy is working, and supports keeping the law unchanged.