For nearly twenty years, the US military pursued a policy with lesbians and gays in the armed forces known as Donâ??t Ask Donâ??t Tell (DADT). When originally formulated, it provided compromise between those who supported the historical ban on homosexuality in the military and those who wanted an immediate lifting of the ban in the name of equal treatment.
In practice, the DADT policy gave the military a transition period that lasted a generation, allowing the culture of the armed forces a time to adjust to the new political and cultural realities it would soon reflect. For those gays and lesbians in the military who chafed under the policy of silence and who occasionally lost careers for breaking it, it became an unconscionable act of censorship and dishonesty, an anathema in a society based on free expression and tolerance.
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