CHAMPAIGN,Ill. – Allowing gays to serve openly in the military could
jump-start a decades-old push to expand rights for same-sex couples, according to a University of Illinois expert on sexual orientation and the law.
Law professor Sara Benson says scrapping the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy could ultimately prove a turning point for gay rights.
Law professor Sara Benson says scrapping the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy could ultimately prove a turning point for gay rights, just as the 1948 integration of the armed services helped pave the way for the civil rights movement.
Six years after President Harry S. Truman’s executive order, the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Brown vs. Board of Education ruling banned segregation in schools, said Benson, who writes about sexual orientation issues for the Law Professor Blogs Network. The Civil Rights Act followed a decade later.
“Integrating the military changed the civil rights movement and this, too, could be the impetus for more rights,” she said. “Maybe not same-sex marriage, because that’s such a contentious issue, but it might at least bring an end to employment discrimination based on sexual orientation.”
President Obama called for a repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in last month’s State of the Union address. Two top military officials backed the move last week as they briefed a Senate panel on a planned yearlong Pentagon study into how the 1993 ban can be revoked without causing major upheaval in the military.
If approved by Congress, allowing gays to serve openly in uniform could boost prospects for the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would prohibit bias against workers based on sexual orientation, Benson said. The proposed bill has been introduced almost annually since 1994, but has failed each time.
“The predictions for 2010 are dim again, even with a Democratic president and Congress, but lifting the ban could help its cause next year,” she said. “It would be one more strong sign that gays and lesbians shouldn’t be treated any differently than other Americans.”
Benson says repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell” could also aid a slow moving, state-by-state push for same-sex marriage and civil unions, but would likely have no effect on rewriting the one-man, one-woman provisions of the federal Defense of Marriage Act.
“It’s just not politically popular,” she said. “California is a classic example that the public just doesn’t support it. The state Supreme Court gave same-sex couples the right to marry, then a referendum took it away.”
Ultimately, Benson says gays will achieve equal rights, though the effort could take years or even decades.
“I think history will show the opponents were wrong, just as the people who supported separate but equal were wrong,” she said. “They’re not vindicated by history in any way, and I think it’s going to be the same for this movement.”
