When it comes to superheroes, you don’t get more American than Superman—all that red and blue spandex, a childhood spent on a farm, and goals pertaining to truth, justice, and the American way.

But what about the heroes who every day fight for justice and the American way but can’t do it truthfully? That’s the conundrum facing the approximately 65,000 gay and lesbian servicemembers in the U.S. military thanks to the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) policy, penned by Charles Moskos and approved by then-president Bill Clinton in 1993. Under the guise of “unit cohesion,” the policy allows gays and lesbians to serve in the military as long as they do not reveal their sexuality.

However, according to Aaron Belkin, director of UCSB’s Palm Center, a think tank dedicated to disseminating research about sexual minorities in the military, “This policy has nothing to do with preserving military effectiveness or unit cohesion, and it never has and it never will.” Plain and simple, it’s a policy that codifies discrimination, and it’s hurting the military. (For a longer interview with Belkin, see independent.com/belkin.)

Airing on PBS on Tuesday, June 16, is Ask Not, a documentary that delves into the subject of DADT by following a handful of servicemembers and veterans as they seek to educate the military and the public about the dangers of continuing the policy. Since its implementation, 12,000 gay and lesbian servicemembers have been discharged, including 54 Arabic translators. To put that in perspective, look at how Army veteran Alex Nicholson—who was discharged under DADT and subsequently founded Call to Duty, a nationwide speaking tour that addresses the topic—explains it in the film: “One of the primary reasons behind the intelligence failures leading to 9/11 was that the Department of Defense’s National Security Agency did not have enough Arabic linguists to translate the backlog of intelligence. … So, the question we need to ask ourselves is: Do we really care anymore if the person who translates the next piece of crucial intelligence is gay or straight as long as he or she gets the job done quickly and accurately?”

To make matters worse, it is estimated that almost 4,000 people every year do not reenlist because of DADT. As a result, the military has had to lower its standards for recruitment —a standard that has gotten so low, in fact, that 4,200 convicted felons currently are in the armed forces.

The impact of DADT goes far beyond the detrimental effect it has on individual soldiers; it bleeds into issues of recruitment and national safety, concerns that are nothing to sneeze at, especially considering our continued involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. It has created a subset of questions and concerns for gay and lesbian military personnel. As the father of an Army veteran who chose not to reenlist because of DADT explained in the film, “It used to be in the military, they tried to pick the best and brightest and keep them. And now there’s a whole different standard whereby your best and brightest very well may be shown the door.”

Belkin, who is featured in Ask Not, contends that DADT negatively impacts all Americans, no matter their political leanings or military involvement. “It is a very profound detriment to citizenship for all Americans when the government fires people, when it allocates rewards and punishments, on the basis of who you are,” Belkin told me recently over the phone. “In this country, you’re only supposed to be punished for things you do, not for who you are. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell actually goes out of its way to pretend to be a law that punishes what you do, but that’s absolutely not true. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell punishes people simply for being, simply for having an identity. … That really is the first step on the road to fascism—punishing people simply for who they are.”

This is perhaps best exemplified in Alan Steinman, the most senior military officer yet to self-identify as gay. Steinman, who retired in 1997 and came out in 2003, explains in Ask Not that the military’s policy toward gays required him not only to keep quiet about his sexuality but to invent a heterosexual identity. After going solo at social events for years, Steinman grew concerned that his lack of a companion would “create discussion” and “raise red flags,” so he put an ad in a magazine for a female escort to attend events with him. An active gay servicemember identified in the film simply as “Perry” (because he doesn’t want to be discharged under DADT) described a similar situation of mentioning an ex-wife and a pregnant girlfriend at home, simply to assuage any doubts about his sexuality. As the film concludes on a particularly striking image of “Perry” saluting a sea of gravestones at Normandy American Cemetery, he ponders, “I risk my life every day. Why should I have an added burden?”

Despite campaign promises to end discrimination in the military, President Barack Obama shows no signs of repealing DADT or even suspending the discharge process with an executive order. Saying the “White House doesn’t want to touch this issue,” Belkin expressed some of the frustration that many in the gay community feel about the wide gap between the assurances of candidate Obama and the actions of President Obama. “The tiny steps that we’ve seen from the White House on gay issues in the first few months have been anemic,” he said, after conceding that the administration has many crises to address.

Although there are many facets of this issue that confound me, perhaps the most mind-boggling one is the most basic one: We are preventing people from serving the country simply because of one aspect of their entire personhood. These are not people desiring special treatment or trivial favors, like a softer pillow or better cafeteria food; these are people who want the right to risk their lives for their country. And in a time of multiple battlefronts and recruitment shortages, turning away capable people, not to mention discharging experienced personnel, seems like the most asinine policy a military could maintain.

4•1•1

Watch Ask Not on Tuesday, June 16, on PBS. To learn more, visit palmcenter.org. For a longer interview with Aaron Belkin, see independent.com/belkin.

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