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SLDN’s Aubrey Sarvis Recommends That Lesbians And Gays Not Answer DoD Survey
07/08/10-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
Earlier this year, efforts to woo or at least neutralize the military chief’s reaction to repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was on pace to succeed. That was until certain individuals and their cheerleaders decided that sticking it to the military was more important than working with them. Unfortunately, this resulted in an unsatisfactory compromise and a survey by the Pentagon Working Group and the Department of Defense which appears to be heavily slanted now to making sure that this unjust law remains intact.
The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network has issued a press release urging lesbian and gay servicemembers not to participate because there is still too much of a risk that the information that they give could be used against them. In the press release, SLDN Executive Director Aubrey Sarvis stated:
“A number of service members have contacted SLDN to seek guidance on surveys concerning the repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell — the discriminatory law barring gay and lesbian service members from serving with integrity. At this time SLDN cannot recommend that lesbian, gay, or bisexual service members participate in any survey being administered by the Department of Defense, the Pentagon Working Group, or any third-party contractors. While the surveys are apparently designed to protect the individual’s privacy, there is no guarantee of privacy and DOD has not agreed to provide immunity to service members whose privacy may be inadvertently violated or who inadvertently outs himself or herself. If a service member still wishes to participate, he or she should only do so in a manner that does not reveal sexual orientation.”
The SLDN feels that there is too much risk of the information being given by the troops being used to out them and discharge them by the largely unfriendly military chiefs. Given that several of them are about to be replaced, it is possible that the tenor of how this will go will change in the very near future, but the clock is ticking on getting those men replaced before the 1 December deadline for the working group.
SLDN was not invited to consultations on the creation of the survey, and the Human Rights Campaign took the lead on that.
The surveys have already gone out, and it is not surprising that they are slanted towards keeping the law intact instead of repealing DADT. To date, the Pentagon has not offered immunity to any lesbian or gay soldiers interviewed in this process.
5 Responses to SLDN’s Aubrey Sarvis Recommends That Lesbians And Gays Not Answer DoD Survey
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Johan Baumeister
July 8, 2010 at 1:41 pm
I think the writer should probably clarify a few things. Who are the “certain individuals” that she thinks derailed progress on DADT repeal?
Also, if she’s come to the conclusion that the survey is slanted, she must surely have read it. So where’s the link to the posted survey, so we can read it too?
Bridgette P. LaVictoire
July 8, 2010 at 1:46 pm
1) Look up 2nd Class Soldier on this blog, and he has an analysis of the survey which has not been made open to the public as far as I know.
2) Let us just say that you should, by now, know that I have a special “fondness” for certain individuals in the LGBT Community and know a lot more about the behind the scenes stuff than I am allowed to source or divulge. You would especially know this if you have followed this blog for a long time.
Johan Baumeister
July 8, 2010 at 1:53 pm
Thanks for the quick reply. I’ll take a look at his piece on the survey. As to the second part, if it weren’t obvious by now, I’m new ’round these parts, having been sent this way by a Google News result, so forgive me if I’m not up on the local politics.
Fondness or not, though, I think it might be a bit overly optimistic to assume that any individuals within the LGBT community carry much weight with the military establishment. This slow “study the issue” process is the way I always figured they’d do things. When I served (I was separated under DADT), there was a saying in the Army: “Hurry up and wait.”
Which about sums up this most recent venture towards equality in the ranks, no?
Johan Baumeister
July 8, 2010 at 2:28 pm
So if I read you correctly, you think people like Lt. Choi are responsible for the current course of action taken by the White House and the Pentagon on repeal. Is that more or less an accurate summary of your belief?
Bridgette P. LaVictoire
July 8, 2010 at 2:30 pm
Pretty much. There was a lot of behind the scenes work going on to neutralize the military chiefs and make this a lot more fair before he and his friends went up in uniform and chained themselves to the White House fence. From what I have been told, there were a lot of raised voices, and a lot of screaming going on after that, and a lot of people found that their access was now a lot more limited. That is not to say that it is the whole reason, but this caused a huge number of problems and set back the progress we had made. There were a lot of people begging him not to do this in order to preserve the progress we had made.