Philadelphia this week was the first stop on a national tour aimed at raising awareness about the importance of repealing the military’s ban on openly gay servicemembers.
The Human Rights Campaign and Servicembers United’s Voices of Honor tour launched July 27 and will travel to more than a dozen other cities in the next two months, utilizing the voices of LGBT and ally servicemembers themselves to educate the public about “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
The local event began with a press conference in the morning, in which U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-Pa.), the prime sponsor of the legislation to repeal the law, was joined by tour participants and former servicemembers Jarrod Chlapowski, Alex Nicholson, Joe Soto, Anuradha Bhagwati and Stephen Vossler. The servicemembers also met that evening with about two-dozen people at the WHYY Studio in Center City for a town-hall discussion on the law and the effort to repeal it.
Murphy told PGN before the press conference that since he signed on as the lead sponsor of the Military Readiness Enhancement Act two weeks ago, he’s recruited more than 20 new legislative cosponsors, bringing the total cosponsorship number to 164.
“We’re making progress every day,” Murphy said. “Besides the 164, I also got some commitments from people who weren’t willing to cosponsor it but who said that when it comes up for a vote, they will be willing to vote for it.”
The bill will need 218 affirmative votes to pass.
Murphy also announced during the press conference that the Senate Armed Services Committee agreed this week to hold hearings on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” this fall — the first time the Senate will hear testimony on the law since its 1993 implementation. A repeal bill has not yet been introduced in the Senate.
Murphy, a Philadelphia native and Iraq War veteran, said the selection of this city as the first host of Voices of Honor holds special importance to him, not just because it’s his hometown, but also because of its rich history.
“This is the cradle of liberty and where our Constitution was written, and that Constitution provides equality for all Americans, whether they’re gay or straight,” he said. “It’s especially fitting that it’s here in our nation’s original capital that we’re kicking off the fight for the repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’”
In his remarks, Murphy emphasized numerous arguments for the repeal of the bill that go beyond basic fairness — such as the fact that the discharge of the more-than 13,000 troops under the policy has cost taxpayers more than $1.3 billion in the past 16 years, and the loss of servicemembers is a direct threat to national security. Murphy said hundreds of those discharged were multi-lingual translators, 60 of whom were fluent in Arabic, such as Nicholson, a former intelligence agent with the U.S. Army.
Now the executive director of Servicemembers United, Nicholson said he’s hoping that by telling his story at Voices of Honor events throughout the country, he’ll shed light on the security threat the law has created.
“My experience is exemplary of the unquantifiable cost of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ that the general public rarely hears about firsthand,” he said. “I want to show the American public that this is the face of a gay solider and that this is the cost of maintaining ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ — a multi-lingual human-intelligence collector who speaks Arabic, has an advanced degree and would go back into the military in a heartbeat if ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ were repealed tomorrow.”
Soto, a Philadelphia resident and former Marine, spent more than eight years in the service but said the pressure of having to keep his personal and professional lives separate eventually overwhelmed him. He said he would drive hours away from the base on free weekends to ensure that no one would spot him at gay bars or functions, and that he got into the habit of switching pronouns to discuss people he was dating.
“The difficult thing is you spend four years at the academy learning about integrity and honor and being honest, and the biggest thing about yourself you have to lie about,” Soto said. “That was grueling.”
Soto served in the 1980s, prior to the enactment of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” when servicemembers could be court-marshaled for homosexual behavior. He said the final straw came when he was filling in as the officer on duty one night and had to sign an order to imprison one of his fellow servicemembers for engaging in homosexual behavior.
“When I signed my name, they handcuffed her. That put me over the edge. The next day I started exploring my options for resignation.”
Soto said he’s participating in the tour to shed light on the servicemembers who weren’t kicked out of the military but who left of their own accord.
“We know that over 13,000 have been discharged because of this cruel law, but we can never put a number on those like me who left because they didn’t want to hide anymore,” he said. “Imagine what we could have done and the contributions we could have made and the lives that could have been saved if we were allowed to serve.”
Chlapowski, now an HRC public-policy advocate, also chose not to reenlist, although he said he was completely open about his sexuality during his service; he noted the “arbitrary enforcement” of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” further proves the law is a “failed policy.”
Vossler, a heterosexual ally and Chlapowksi’s best friend, said when he enlisted in the Army at age 18, he was probably one of the “least likely candidates for becoming a gay-rights advocate,” having grown up in a deeply religious family from a town in rural Nebraska with a population of just 1,000.
While studying at the Defense Language Institute in California, however, Chlapowski was assigned to share a room with a gay servicemember who was undergoing the discharge process because of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Vossler said the friendship he developed with his roommate and later with Chlapowksi motivated him to take a stand against the law.
“In today’s military, sexual orientation just isn’t a big deal,” he said. “We learn and grow from the diversity within the military that we encounter. We are all well-trained and professional, and we are more than capable of handling that diversity.”
Bhagwati, a former Marine officer, is also an ally, who said her advocacy on the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was precipitated after her close friend was discharged upon the discovery that she was a lesbian.
Bhagwati is the executive director of Service Women’s Action Network, an advocacy agency for female servicemembers and veterans. She noted that although women make up just 15 percent of the armed forces, they accounted for 50 percent of all the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” discharges last year in the Army and Air Force, and that African-American servicewomen are discharged at three times the rate of their involvement in the military.
“These statistics are not evidence that the military is upholding unit cohesion, good order, discipline or any of the other convenient catchphrases used by proponents of this archaic and useless policy,” Bhagwati said. “These statistics are at the least shocking and at the most shameful. I was proud to wear the uniform and proud to serve my country, but ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ is a blemish on the spirit with which Americans choose to serve and the values that we defend.”
For more information on the Voices of Honor tour, visit www.hrc.org/voicesofhonor.
Jen Colletta can be reached at [email protected].