Jill replies:

Congress is considering repealing the military's discriminatory "don't ask, don't tell" policy. At present the bill (The Military Readiness Enhancement Act (H.R. 1246)) is in committee with 136 cosponsors.

In the past fourteen years Don't Ask, Don't Tell has done a great deal of harm, not only to the military but to the country and individual servicepeople as well. These numbers are nothing to be proud of:

Since 1993, the federal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law has cost American taxpayers more than $364 million. An average of two service members are dismissed under the law every day. According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), nearly 800 people with skills deemed'mission-critical' by the Pentagon have been dismissed under the law, including more than 322 language experts, at least 58 of whom specialized in Arabic.

What's especially interesting to me is that fourteen years of debate about this policy have gone on without homosexual service members being able to weigh in; Don't Ask, Don't Tell applies to any and all communications. Gay and lesbian service members who out themselves, even to provide context for their thoughts on policies that directly affect them, can be discharged. It's an unjust and silencing catch-22.

Wikipedia goes into more detail about this policy. Let's hope this bill gets past committee and Don't Ask, Don't Tell is outed as the hateful policy it always has been.