Back in the 1990's, President Clinton came up with a policy called "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" as it pertained to gays being in the military. At the time I thought it was a pretty useless piece of legislation, yet it's persisted for these many years.

Back in the 30's through 80's, maybe I could see the policy of dismissing gays from the military. This isn't because I have anything against gay people. It's because back in those days, even with the more open 70's, gay people usually tried to hide their background so much that if they were found out they could compromise military activities instead of just owning up to what they were and accepting the consequences. In my opinion, anything one has to hide that much is a liability to both the military and governmental operations.

Fast forward to the 90's. By that time, being gay wasn't such a big deal for most of us. It sounds trite to say I have gay friends, but I do. Goodness, I knew a lot of gay people back in the late 70's and early 80's when I was in college in the music program, since there were a lot of gay theater arts majors and we shared the same building. I didn't care then and I don't care now.

In my opinion, there's no need for such a law at this point. I don't think there was a need for it in the 90's either. What I think President Clinton was trying to do was say if a gay person didn't state that they were gay that they could serve, but that's not how the act was used. As a matter of fact, nothing changed as far as how gays were treated by the military, and that made the law a travesty.

Fast forward to today. There are still folks who believe this act has worked, Senator John McCain being one of those people. Yet both the military and the Justice Department have said that ending it wouldn't hurt morale one way or the other. I find it weird that the party that says having laws to protect specific sets of people are stupid because they're covered under other laws are protesting the end of this one that has done absolutely nothing.

From a diversity perspective I think it's great to allow anyone who wants to serve in the military the right to do it, as long as they can physically handle it. In this day and age, where there has been so much worry and consternation over military actions this country has undertaken, and the belief that more is coming as soon as some of our troops get out of Iraq, anyone willing to serve voluntarily gets props from me because they know what they're getting themselves into. I would be proud to have anyone that qualifies as a member of the armed services, and I would hope most other people would as well.

We can't continue to fight for the rights of people in other countries while still having policies that prevent the rights of people in our own country. That goes for business as well as the military; it's time for the government to do the right thing for all.