Get Used to It: Ep. 135, "Iraq and the LGBT Community"

(keyboard clicking) (upbeat music) - Hi, welcome to "Get Used To It." I'm Sheila Kuehl, your hostess, your lovely hostess, as I am each month on these shows for the past, I think 17 years. And I hope you saw every single one of them. Well, there was a recent survey about what the American people, which includes us, of course have on their mind. And you would be surprised to know that it was about the war in Iraq. Now, people think differently about why they're thinking about the war, but it's a very, very important topic to us. And since this show has much to do with issues that relate to our LGBT community, as well as more broadly in the United States, I thought, well, what kind of a show would we do about the war? And the answer of course, is it's really about our community and its relationship not only as Americans, not only to the democracy, but also to the military to ""Don't Ask, Don't Tell"," to what led up to it, to what's happened since, and also how about the rest of our community that may not want to be in the military, but wanna support people in the community that wanna be in the military. It's a complicated issue. So I invited three wonderful people to be my guest today, and that is going to be our topic. My first guest is Zoe Dunning. Zoe is co-chair of the Service Members, Legal Defense Network, A retired, very recently retired a commander in the Navy Reserves who after coming out, served as an openly gay person in the Navy for 14 years after she challenged the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, welcome, Zoe. I'm really glad you're here. - Thanks. (indistinct) - [Sheila] And you had to travel to get here, so I'm very happy, twice as happy. - Thank you. - Thank you. Second guest is Aaron Belken, who is the executive director of the Michael Palm Center at UC Santa Barbara, which is a research Institute established for the study of gays in the military. He's an associate professor at UCSB. Welcome Aaron. - Thank you very much. - And our third guest may be somewhat familiar to you, Torie Osborne, whenever I want a third smart person who knows about everything and has an opinion about everything that's Torie Osborne. She was executive director of the LA Gay and Lesbian Center here in LA. She was executive director of the task force, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Most recently executive director of the Liberty Hill Foundation, the best little foundation in America. And now she is senior advisor to our own mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa. Welcome Torie. - [Torie] Thank you. - Zoe let's start with you. Tell us a little bit about your story, sort of, how did you decide to be in the military, rose to the rank of commander? I mean, it's a very high rank in the Navy and then kind of what happened. - Sure. I entered the Navy through the Naval Academy. I actually went looking for what college I wanted to go to. My family's financial situation was such that I needed a scholarship, if I was gonna be going to college. And the Naval Academy, the more I got to find out about it, the more it appealed to me because its mission is to develop midshipman, morally, mentally, and physically. So to me, it was sort of an opportunity not only, you know, have financial assistance with getting my college degree, but also to, you know, do more than just study, go there and, you know, develop leadership skills, continue to participate actively in sports, get a great academic education. And so it was really appealing to me to go somewhere where it was like a meritocracy. Everyone kind of came in at ground zero. It didn't matter how you wore your hair or what your father did for a living or what sorority you pledged. It was all about sort of performance. So that was very appealing to me and I entered and served six years of active duty after graduation. I was a supply corps officer and then transitioned into the reserves, went on to get my MBA at Stanford Business School. And while I was a second year student there, Clinton had just been elected. And of course he had his pledge that he was gonna lift the ban and I supported him in that. - So you were pretty much in the closet. - I was absolutely in the closet the entire time. - Yeah, - Well, not the entire time, but once I discovered my own sexual orientation, I knew that I had to keep it a secret if I wanted to maintain my career. And I watched as witch hunts went on around me, I watched friends and colleagues get investigated, other ones get discharged. And so I knew the personal toil that it took, on me as well as folks that I served alongside. So when Clinton said he was gonna lift the ban, I was very excited and attended a rally outside of Moffett Naval Air Station at the time down in Mountain View and was given the opportunity to speak at it. And it was somewhat about 24 hours beforehand I decided that I would speak at it. And in my speech, I came out and stated that I was both a Naval officer and a lesbian, and the Navy began immediate discharge proceedings against me. - Now, what was your rank at that time? - I was a Lieutenant and I had a hearing under the policy prior to "Don't Ask, Don't Tell". So this was Clinton... It was the rally was right before his inauguration. So I had a hearing under the prior policy and they voted unanimously to discharge me, but before they could actually enact it, Clinton announced, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." So it was so much fun the first time they decided to do it again. And I got to have a second hearing this one under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." And I was one of the very, very first test cases. You know, we're still kind of figuring out what the policy is, what does it mean? And we can get into some of the more legal details if we wanna go there. But essentially my defense against, these accusations of illicit conduct were that my statement was one of status only. When I say I'm a lesbian it's about who I am. And I took the stand and made that statement. And the jury of officers or the panel of officers found that that was sufficient to rebut the presumption that engage in conduct and allowed me to voted unanimously actually to retain me since then the department of defense was issued a memorandum that said, no one else can use that defense. So, my whole reason for coming out was to try to change the policy. And because I didn't have standing to sue because I was retained, I therefore, you know, thought, well, at least I'll set a legal precedent. At least I'll have a strategy that other people can use, but then the department of defense and said, you know, no, we don't like losing. So once they found out that I'd won my case, they prevented anyone else from-- - It was also a little bit question... Well, I don't mean it wasn't a good strategy for you to use and for your legal advisors to use, but it's also a strange kind of divide to make. - [Zoe] Right. - It's almost like, you know, I wanna be a priest and I'll be celibate. - [Zoe] Right. - And so I'm gay, but I'm celibate, so don't worry. - [Zoe] Right. - But in the military, you don't have to be celibate, except if you are going to be gay or lesbian, you have to say, that's my status, but not bad behavior, which is kind of like saying I don't behave that way because that would be conduct unbecoming when it actually isn't. - Right. And so it was a very fine line. You're right. Legally, there were a lot of other cases that were going on at that time. Some people had taken the high road and said, I'm not even gonna go there and attempt or about the presumption. They lost. You had others who had taken this, oath of celibacy on the stand they lost. So essentially what we wanted to do is not lie. - [Sheila] Right. - But basically say it's none in your business. And so the strategy was just to say, take the stand and say, look, this is a statement of status. My statement didn't have anything to do with conduct. - [Sheila] Right. - Not saying don't engage in conduct or do engage in conduct, just saying my statement didn't have anything to do with conduct. - [Sheila] Right. - And it was a very sort of fine line-- - And you're right it is about status. I mean, you know. - And it was political speech in some manner. - [Sheila] Sure. - And I think, you know, 'cause I had Morrison and Foerster, represented me pro bono and did an outstanding job. It was a held a treasure island in the Bay Area. So perhaps my panel of officers might have been a little more liberal or progressive than your typical board of military officers. The policy was so new people were confused exactly how to interpret it. All those forces just sort of aligned. And I was able to become this exception and therefore then be able to serve openly after that. Now the ironic thing was between my two hearings. I received notification that had been selected for promotion to Lieutenant commander. So at the same time they were trying to discharge me. They were also promoting me. - And then you were promoted again. - [Zoe] And then later on-- - Retired at rank of commander, right? - I've received a couple of personal awards since then, medals, I've gone on exercises in the Middle East. I've continued to perform just like any other Naval officer and then got promoted to commander. And just as of today, I'm now officially retired. - So what was the service like for... Congratulations. I should say. - [Zoe] Thank you. - What was the service like for you those 14 years? I mean, I just saw a study that they did a long longitudinal study of gays and lesbians in the British military and the, it was the defense department or whatever they call it in great Britain that did the study and found no impact. They couldn't find anybody to say this was made everything worse or you know, made everything better or whatever. It was kinda like ho hum. - [Zoe] Right. - Which was very interesting. And that just came out. But what was your personal experience in those years being out and in the Naval Reserve? - My personal experience was actually for overall very positive. I had service. I, you know, colleagues in my unit who testified on my behalf at my hearings, I think mostly they were sort of confused and concerned why I would put my career at risk. They didn't understand what I was trying to achieve. So there was definitely some personal concern. And so some apprehension there, but still very supportive of me. If you know, if this is what you wanna do, you're still our ship mate. We still wanna serve alongside you. And I discovered that as I went from unit to unit and got to know folks, I was actually able to establish better bonds with my cohorts after coming out because I didn't have anything to hide anymore. - [Sheila] Right. - I found that when I was on active duty and when I was in the closet, I segmented my life very much. You know, I had my work life and then I went home at night and I kept the two very, very separate. And you know, the military is, it's kind of a 24/7 thing. It's hard to segment your life that way. You go out to sea with your shipmates, you deploy with them. You live in the same barracks with them. And in many cases like I did at the Naval Academy and it's, you know, when you don't have to like hide that anymore, then you can socialize more with your shipmates without fear of discovery. You can just speak more openly about, who you are and what you do as opposed to worrying that something will slip out that might, be guilt by association. - So people do ask though why this is an important issue for our community. It's an important issue of employment discrimination, but there's, as I said, some ambivalence sometimes about the military, but I know you said, this was a place where at your socioeconomic level and the way you grew up, this was a really good place for you to go, especially the academy, others who don't enter officer ranks, but you know, volunteer for the services, say the same thing, the education, the pay, you know, sort of the, and the status. Tell me, is that your experience in terms of other gays and lesbians that you've met in the service? I mean the Service Members Legal Defense Network before they're, treated badly in the service, what do you see as their motivations for why is the military an important employer for us? - I think a number of reasons. People have a sense... I mean, for me personally, I felt like I'm very privileged to be an American citizen. I'm very fortunate. And I was brought up with a sense of, I need to kind of pay back to my country and my community in some way, I've gotten this benefit and this privilege and I need to give back. And so I think you get just as with any service member, a sense of, service to their country and also sort of a sense of belonging to something bigger than yourself. My one most vivid memory is shortly after I'd gone from active duty to reserve and I was going through business school and I spent a summer internship doing business consulting and I was watching television and the, and midway was on and it was like this movie. And I was thinking like, they made movies about what I do, you know, it's like they made movies about it. It's like, it's that important? It's that interesting. And they don't make movies about business consultants, it's just, it's, not as, intriguing or interesting or larger than you. So it's just, it's kind of being part of that historical chain. It's about serving your country for something larger than yourself. And I think also for me, and I think probably for a lot of other lesbians in particular, the military is something that, values assertiveness and leadership and physical strength. And that's, those are qualities that society as a whole doesn't necessarily encourage or place tremendous value on. So I think-- - [Sheila] For women. - Yeah, for women, I think in particular, it's attractive in those ways. And I think, I've heard anecdotal stories of, young men who are not maybe necessarily sure, their sexual orientation and somehow maybe go to the military to prove their manhood or to prove their masculinity, sort of a testing ground for that to maybe sort of deny or put off what they think is, might be true about their own sexual orientation. That's not true, obviously in all cases, but those are some of the reasons. - It's great variety of reasons. - [Zoe] Absolutely. - Well, Aaron, tell us a little bit about the Palm Center, because I think the only one in the country that really is totally devoted to really scholarly research about gay and lesbians in the military, but also it has its own political component. Not really 'cause it's academic and its UC. I mean it doesn't, advocate. but still looking at it, it's got a point of view. - We don't have a point of view in terms of telling people what the policy should be. - [Sheila] Right. - The reason that we exist is because rolling back the clock to the time when Zoe's story took place, the debate was influenced by and was inflicted by so much emotion. You could almost say more heat than light and people on all sides of the debate were making arguments that just weren't based on fact. And so I started the, center in order to produce state of the art research and we report all of our data, whether it's data that shows that gays in the military are doing a good job or a bad job, or that repeal would harm cohesion or help cohesion. We just do the studies and we let the data speak for themselves. Of course it is political to do that because-- - But not intentionally on your part. I mean, it's really an academic program. - Well, it's political because we wanna make sure that the policy is based on evidence, but it's not political in the sense of saying here's what the military should do. - So what kinds of research does the Palm Center do? - We've done two dozen studies. We did a long study on the British military to try to figure out whether integration harmed cohesion in the United Kingdom. We've studied Israel. We studied of all things, nudity and military showers. (laughing) I like to frivolously or playfully introduce myself as an expert on nudity and military showers. (laughing) This is actually an incredibly serious argument because one of the primary rationales for firing gays and lesbians articulated in federal court decisions and in congressional statute is that integration would compromise heterosexual privacy. So we did a study to find out if that was true, we studied the unit cohesion, rationale theoretically, and a whole range of studies. - Do you wanna say anything about conclusions of the studies? - I'd like to know. - Sure. Our studies find that discrimination tends to hurt the military more than help it. There are a number of costs associated with discrimination, wasting talent, violence against women, financial waste, undermining unit cohesion when Zoe was forced to stay in the closet. It's very common to hear about how the closet undermines cohesion. So what the studies find is that in terms of costs and benefits, there appear to be more costs to discrimination than benefits. - So in terms of the relationship of our community to the military, it's not necessarily only a conclusion of your center, but this has worked to which you've devoted a good deal of your time. Like Zoe, many of the members of our community go into the military for the benefits for the benefit of one is a good American, one is just as good an American, the equality issue. So do you see it overall as a very good thing for our community? You, personally. - To have the option to serve in the military? - [Sheila] Yeah. - That's a very complicated question. So we might be able to think about that at a number of different levels. One perspective, which I absolutely believe in is that the military is the place where people become full citizens. And when the biggest employer goes out of its way to fire us for who we are, that is a hit to citizenship, not just for us, but for Americans overall, when moral gatekeepers get to decide, who's a first class citizen and who's not, that undermines the meaning of what it is to be free because in this country you're supposed to be evaluated by the job you do not by who you are. So on one hand, this fight to repeal, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" couldn't be more critical, not just for the GLBT community, but in the moment of the Patriot act and the other hits to American citizenship for America overall. On the other hand, some would argue that the way that we as a community have resisted, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" by talking about the benefits that we as gay and lesbian people bring to the military, that those arguments bring along with them a sense that reinforces the military as the most noble organization in the country. Yes, it's true the military is interesting and it's noble and serving your country is a good thing. But isn't being a teacher also serving your country? Isn't being a postman, also serving your country? And the way in which the GLBT community has talked about gays in the military, somewhat argue has reinforced the militarization of the country and the sense that the military is in some sense above everybody else. And some would argue that that in and of itself is what enabled us to go to war without a real debate. - Well, it's, it is interesting because in a way, if you have to value something, I've heard the same arguments about marriage. Although that seems to be fairly much over because now everybody's supposed to be for it. But the notion that aren't, we reinforcing something that may not necessarily be absolutely the best thing for everybody, marriage generally is supposed to be about love and partnership. The military generally is not about love and partnership. I mean, the purpose for it is security. And often that security involves war or military action. So 'cause you said an interesting thing to me when we were talking on the phone about not only does it elevate the military as a strategy for our community, but in a way it robs us of our ability to have our usual progressive anti-war stance as a community. - Some would argue that the arguments that we have been using to resist "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", have had the derivative effect of helping to remove the community from the pool of potential opponents to militarization. Militarization is a, is it's a broad phenomenon. I mean, we have an empire that we're supporting now we're forward deployed in more than a hundred countries. And we don't really talk about that because the society is so militarized and it's militarized for a lot of reasons, but one potential voice of opposition to that militarization could have been the GLBT community, but instead we've spent the last decade talking about the military as not only a noble institution, but the most noble institution. - Well, Torie, this is right up your alley because I, the credit of course that I didn't start with the earliest credit in your college organizing career was your anti-war work Vietnam, but the notion of what a progressive community believes in what it does and how it incorporates anti-discrimination issues is as Aaron suggested, maybe there's some conflict there. What do you think? - Well, I think we're in an incredibly conservative era. I mean, when you look at the kind of the arc of history the last 30 years since the new right, took over, began to take over the Republican party and sort of, and changed policy on a whole lot of levels. So we're in a very conservative era. I've often thought it was, you know, I've said God has an amazing sense of irony that the LGBT community would actually flower and come into its own and take its place at the American table at the exact time that the right takes over. And but, and the reason that I say that is that it has made issues that are traditional mainstream American issues become our issues because we're in a conservative against a conservative backdrop. So the issue of marriage, the issue of the military are reinforced, or there's less tension and contradiction because our movement is flowering in a, within the context of an extre... Of the most conservative era in memory in American history. So that sort of concept . Now I was chuckling listening actually to both Zoe and Aaron, because thinking about Randy Shilts, who was a friend of mine and died of AIDS, of course, and was really our great Pulitzer Prize, winning journalist who wrote "The Mayor of Castro Street" and wrote "Conduct Unbecoming," which I think to this day stands as pretty much the definitive tract on the gays and the military issue. And now Randy was really no feminist. He and I used to argue about feminism. He was more of a kind of... I mean, he was a... I guess he would call him a liberal, I don't know what these labels mean anymore. They've become increasingly meaningless, but I mean, he lived in San Francisco, and he was probably a progressive, I guess, but he was, notably kind of gay male identified in the 70's and the 80's. And yet when he wrote this book, when he already had AIDS and was, and knew he was dying of AIDS and was actually forced to compress the time of writing the book, because it was at the end of his life. He writes about this in the forward and he talks about, talked about it privately to me, and probably in other interviews that it was the great revelation of his own research project to kind of look, realize he was looking right in the eye of what Aaron calls the empire. But what he talked about is he said, so here we are. And here is the most patriarchal, the most oppressive institution in America, the military and the, an institution that it built into its DNA is about war, aggression, killing, and patriarchal in the sense that not just a tradition of privileging men and, not allowing women in combat, but of actually oppressing women. So it's no surprise to people that there is such a history of horrible treatment of women and of women's experience within the military, which he actually embraced the experience of women and the experience of... That the gender issue at the core, the gender, what would we call? What's the right word for, he'll say it, but that keeping the gender straight and the kind of gender bending and the very essence of gay liberation and the very essence of kind of questioning the gender identity that is at the core of gay rights was, is a huge challenge to the military - A threat. - A real threat, a total threat. - To keeping that the way it was. - And that he... And he found himself in approaching it, having to kind of recognize that you, that while he totally supported the lifting of the ban and the right for LGBT people to be, to join the military, if they wanted to, he really recognized it as a sort of an ideological contradiction. - Well, I think that the theme really is it it's sort of bifurcated in a way, but I see them as related. And I see it somewhat the same as some of the other issues, as you've indicated that our community looks at in terms of legitimization of our community in order to be seen as, legitimate in some ways Americans or parents, or things that we want to be able to be, which are normal. We have to fight to either be just like them, which is what women tried to do at the beginning. Remember when we all went to work and we put shoulder pads in and said, never mind, I won't ever have any babies, I'll be just like guys, you know, take me right into the workplace. And the minute we got there, we said, oh, I was lying. I want maternity leave. You know, I want... And it's sort of like that with us. We get there, we are fine. We're hiding, then we're not fine that we're hiding. And we need to say who we are as though we did. And as many others have, and it doesn't work for the military. I mean, it, it's still very hard for them. - Well, I guess what I would say is, and actually I was very moved listening to Zoe again, moved again. I'm always moved when I hear you talk. And I think that that's sort of the greatness of our movement and if one can learn to live with the contradictions and to accept just the importance of being allowed to be true to who you are and to a kind of an American vision of the best, the highest and greatest American vision, which I don't think is compatible ultimately with the empire that we've become. But that really is about an expanding vision of democracy, a pluralistic notion, and a notion of an ever increasing evermore equal society. I think it's wonderful that many of us who are old enough to remember were forged in the anti-Vietnam war movement. I mean, I'm not a pacifist, I've never been a pacifist, but there's a huge tradition of American pacifism that goes back a long time. And that embraced many, many gay people, both in and out of the closet, gays and lesbians and transsexuals, and have been at the forefront of every social reform movement. We have been a part, whether in the name, in our own names or alongside other folks, we have been absolutely front and center of the sort of, unfinished story of America achieving ever greater liberty and justice for all. And at the same time in this era, because of this conservative era, we have had to, we've part of our liberation has been to lay claim on the most conservative institutions. I think it's great. And I mean, I think the Iraq war is outrageous. I'm sick of it. I think it's amazing that the American people have woken up without the kind of anti-war movement that we had in Vietnam. It took us many years and tens of thousands of us working really hard. But, you know, I regret the kind of demonization of the military that we did. We made it either, or, and now we don't have to do that. I like the way that Americans against this war are saying support our troops, bring them home. And I don't... And I'm not so sure that gay people and just what you were talking about that gay people are as voices coming into the debate at this time in history, in general, aren't part of that message. - And, but do we need to have a conversation about the extent to which our strategies have become so mainstreamed? Yes, the stakes are real, and it's not just as if it's a small thing. It's not just gays and lesbians losing their careers and being fired. It's people driven to suicide. It's people being sexually assaulted. The stakes are real for why we need to lay claim to this conservative institution. And, but isn't there something else that we could be talking about in addition to potential opposition to the war, but in terms of what it means to have such a militarized society? I do wonder sometimes whether the community could be making other claims, if we let ourselves, if we hadn't allowed ourselves to become so mainstreamed. - Well, we can also make claims though about the harm to the military establishment itself of its own policy. - [Aaron] Sure. Which are real. - Which is, sort of an interesting way. You didn't say much about the interpreters, but I think that was one of when we all read about it, it was kind of like, yeah, take that America, because you can tell the story better than I, 'cause you're much more familiar with set the facts for the viewers and then kind of what the outcome was. - Well, so, Zoe should talk about this more than I would. - [Sheila] 'Cause it was a, was it in the service? - Well, no but I'll, I mean, I'll do a brief segue and hand it over. - [Sheila] Okay. Good. - But so the, costs of the policy are serious, not just for gays and lesbians, but for the military we have now fired 58 Arabic linguists under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" just for being gay. This is of course in a moment when cable set untranslated warning of the attack on September 10, because we didn't have enough translators. The Iraq study group found that there are only six fully fluent Arabic translators in the Baghdad embassy at this point just last week, news was broken that we have fired three more Arabic linguists. And it's not just linguists. Of course, it's brain surgeons, it's Farsi linguists, it's other people who are mission critical, but-- - [Sheila] Right. - You've seen the ways in which the policy hurts national security. - Well, absolutely. I mean the statistics show, there's an estimated that 65,000 service members right now who are gay and lesbian, who are serving and they're, doing their job and you have critical skills like linguists, medical core, MPs, you know, all sorts of things. And so it is hurting our national security to discharge fully qualified folks who are, serving their country. And that also doesn't take into account, not only the discharges, but people who just decide not to re-up. I mean, that's the uncounted thousands that we're talking about in terms of, you know, I would've made it a career, but I'm tired of living in the closet. So I'm just gonna at the end of my contract, move along and become a civilian. - We're all volunteers now. - Right. - I mean, God forbid we're not gonna Institute a draft because then everybody would really see that the whole thing was a bad idea. And so instead we'll keep sending the same reservists back-- - [Zoe] Right. - Extend their stay and with a all volunteer service. And you say to people you're not welcome here, or we're going to harass you if you're here, it may overcome the benefits of the education and the, I don't know the value in society. - Well, and also at a time when we're so desperate to fill our ranks, that we've dropped our standards. We're letting in people in up to their 40's can now enlist. There's been a huge increase in the number of felons who've been allowed to enlist , people with lower mental and educational aptitude than normal are being allowed to enlist. So the shortfalls of the national security compromise. So this policy is serious. - And I think it'd be interesting to enlist in the efforts like the families of the guy, the heterosexual guys who are getting sent back for a third time. And it's sort of like, okay, I'm sorry that you've already been there twice who are sending back a third time to replace the gay linguists that we just fired or, so you have people who are going for second and third tours to fill positions from folks who either left after the end of their commitment or have been fired because they're gay. - And it's... The issue of the militarization. It's just an interesting thing. It's not just, although I thought I heard you say there was some connection, but I'm trying to sort of figure this out. The militarization of the country that is up until very recently when there seemed to be a tipping point about the war. People were not incredibly enthusiastic, but with the president on this and that I think you Torie characterized as the militarization of America, and you said something about our community having to be so supportive and wanting to be supportive, tipped us toward militarization in support as well. But do you, was there a relationship there or are we just part of America? We're all going for militarization now. - Well, no, it's... I mean, as Torie can elaborate during the Vietnam war there were, I mean, some of the radical roots of the anti-Vietnam war protest overlapped with some of the energy coming out of Stonewall and LGBT groups who were kind of finding their own footing for their own way. And it kind of, those voices have become less prominent in the community, but I'm not sure if it's because we've kind of taken a place at the table at the moment that the right has, I don't know if we can blame the right for our own mainstreaming. Maybe we can, maybe we can't. - But, well, I think there's probably a lot of reasons why there's no left in America today. No left left. There's no left left. Why there's no sort of mass anti-establishment if you even wanna call it that movement. I mean, I think the fall of communism, the lack of a robust alternative to capitalism is one of them. I think that, you know, there's a lot of reasons, but I do think that, so that the 70's were really a totally different era. The 60's and 70's were a completely different era Stonewall and the anti-war movement were completely intertwined. In fact, all of those movements were intertwined. We used to call it the movement. I mean, you might be doing your lavender, you know, liberation thing or your lesbian feminist liberation thing, or your school reform thing, or your revolution tomorrow thing, but you all were part of the movement. You might be... It was a totally different era, whether you lived in Chicago or in rural area, whether you were involved in school, community schools, or whether you were involved in women's liberation, you know, hammering Sheetrock on the new coffee house, we all talked about it as the movement. Now that was the last era of kind of, I mean, I would call it the left. Again I don't think these terms have a whole lot of meaning. I think they have increasingly less meaning. And for that I'm frankly grateful, but for lack of a better term, we are in a very conservative era and things have moved so far to the right inequality has become so tremendous. But see, I think we're also, and Sheila has heard me say this before, but I think we're at the beginning of the percolation of some new ideas or ideology or vision for the world. And I think what we're seeing is the beginning of the crumbling of the empire. And more than that, it's not just out of a sort of noble critical ideology. There's something wrong with militarization. There's something wrong with empire, there's, it's that we're gonna destroy the planet. If we keep responding to each other as humans, it's, it can, you would, would've sounded extremely idealistic back in the 60's. Really honestly, the discourse was totally different. If you had said, look, we're gonna destroy the planet's ecology if we keep responding the way that we are and not dealing with the environmental issues. We're gonna destroy the planet if we keep having increasing gap between wealth and poor and don't take care of people's basic needs when we have every possible scientific technological and financial capacity to do so. And we would be destroying, if we keep responding with violence, but now it's actually not so far a leap to say that because we are destroying the planet and we have created such a gap between rich and poor that we feed terrorism every day, that we don't have a changed kind of foreign policy. And, you know, you talked about what it felt like to have that sense of sort of a higher purpose or a sense of believing in something beyond yourself. I mean, I think the military, I think we could have a military that would feed that highest and greatest sense of purpose that you had, but that didn't necessarily be doing The work of empire. - Right. - I mean, if nations are always gonna need to have security forces, people are always gonna wanna join up some disciplined place that creates some educational opportunities and gives them a sense of solidarity with other people. I mean, those are kind of human needs, I think, not every human being, but a lot of people. And I think, it kind of is the anti is anti-globalization activist do. I mean, I really think another world is possible. And I actually think we're at the very early stages of beginning to imagine such a world. And it's a world that goes exactly the direction that you know, that we're sort of reaching for here. But that is, that encompasses your desire to the best part of you that joined up the military people's desire to want to get married. And then also the more, much more radical need to transform the social institutions that are literally gonna destroy the world. - But when you look at other countries or you go to visit other countries and you learn about their military kind of approach, the right wing in the United States has really fed fear as an element of its own election. I mean, that's really what it's been about. In other countries they all have armies, they all have Navies, most of them anyway. And, but it's not about empire. It's not about invasion. You know, there's a lot of training. They develop weaponry, et cetera, but they're not scared of everybody else in the world as an aspect of their election. And even when their governments go more to the right, you don't see the same kind of issue here. So what you're saying about the possibility of a military that does its job, it's the same way with police, which is paramilitary. There are different kinds of police forces, and some of them are so oppressive. We have some experience here in Los Angeles in some aspects that we say, you know, it doesn't have to be like that, does it? And other cities say, no, it doesn't, you know, here's how we've done it. And I think the same thing is true with the military, but people will always wanna join up, I mean. - And I think you'll also find when we talk about the military, I mean, there's so many aspects to it, so right. That, you know, the soldier on the ground, the mid grade, you know, field officer, the general, the commander in chief. And I think you actually find quite a number of pacifists within the military because they do join for idealistic reasons to defend their country, not to be an aggressor. And they are the ones who are most impacted when we go to war, quite frankly. I mean, if you're the one who has to put your body in life on the line, you're probably less likely to be eager to go do that. And so, you know, we gotta be really careful about like, there's the, there's military members who I'm trained to do my job. I'm told that this is what I have to do by my chain of command versus the decision makers and the policy makers and the white house and the commander in chief. And the folks are saying, I have this tool and this is how I'm gonna use it. - Yeah. I mean, I think some of the best experts on militarization and the militarization of the culture would say that to the extent there's a problem. It's not the military, it's not the organization itself. It's the set of ideas circulating through the culture. It's about after 911, the country decides to go to war in Afghanistan. Maybe that was right. Maybe that wasn't right. But we didn't even have a conversation about whether military force was the right way to solve this problem, because we just assumed that if we have a foreign policy problem, the military can solve it. It's that moment-- - Right. - That reflects the military militarization of society. And it's not about the loyal people in the armed forces. - Right. - It's about we as a civilian society and our relationship to military force. Like any tool sort of how it's utilized -- - [Aaron] That's right. - And that's what it's utilized for. When I was in Vietnam with the USO, I went on a handshake tour, not an entertainment tour. People with no talent, went on a handshake tour. And so I got to talk to 10,000 guys and pretty uniformly they said that the real hawks were the lifers were the majors and the light colonels. Those were the worst. They were the ones that thought we absolutely needed to be there. And we needed to kill everybody in sight. But above that rank and below that rank, they said everybody had questions. The generals were not the biggest talks. It was kind of like, if you're gonna put us here, give us the opportunity to do what we're supposed to do or else get us the hell out of here. And of course it was Eisenhower that warned us all against a military industrial complex and who knew better than him. - [Zoe] Right. - I remember after 911, the unbelievable patriotism in the best possible sense that flooded this country. The unbelievable... First of all, the, I mean in New York in particular, but not, but really everywhere divisions broke down people, it didn't matter. They were all Ash covered, right? Whether they were black or white or men or women or immigrants or billionaires, it, the differences evaporated, the sense of caring for each other. Now it always happens after a crisis, but it was a particular time When all across this country and across the globe, America's heart was open to ourselves and across the world, people's hearts were open to America and our traditional enemies became our friends and that moment of goodwill and for it to have been so-- - Perverted. - Perverted. - Yeah. - And exploited . - Yeah. - And wasted. - And that... And wasted and not just the goodwill squandered and the kind of the open-heartedness crushed and redirected. It was a huge, huge travesty, but it was so, you know, it was just what the Neo conservative, just what Bush wanted to do to put forward his-- - But we let that happen. - Well, I think that people let it happen in terms of Afghanistan. The anti... If you recall, before, in 2003, on February 15, there was the longest, the largest preempt of anti-war movement in human history. There were 15 million people in the streets across the world trying to stop the Iraq war. It didn't stop them. They had the tools of power and they used it. But most people did not want us to go into war. Many, many, many, many people did not want us to go to into Iraq. - Right. - I think Afghanistan was a different story. The country was much more divided and was much more in favor. And even sort of those of us who were progressives were more divided about that. But the Iraq war, there was a huge upsurge. I had never seen anything like it. I mean, it took years and years and years of the Vietnam movement to have that kind of a turnout. We had tens of hundreds of thousands of people, of all from all walks of life that were against it. It just couldn't stop them. - Well. But our leaders in Congress were divided. The democratic party was split. - Right. - If you look at the vote counts in the Senate and the house, the white house was brilliant. They split the democratic party right down the middle with that war. - And with lies. And I mean that the Democrats mean Hillary, even, you know, all of them now regret, (indistinct) - Always always happens. I mean, I can say, because I've now participated in about 50,000 votes on stuff in the California legislature, which does not have a foreign policy. I'm so happy, but you know, your constituents themselves are somewhat ambivalent. You have families with service members. They may have been ambivalent about the war, but now they've invested a child in this war they're pretty invested and it's hard for them to say, I really don't believe in it. I now I kind of have to believe in it. They've got even, in our sergeant, in the Senate, one of our sergeants at arms has a service member daughter and has, a little service member flag in her office window. And it's kind of hard for them. And I think many of us who represent constituents, they were sort of ambivalent too. It was kind of like, well, we don't know. And I can see where people were pressured in a way. I mean, I'm not for it either. I would've been totally anti-war in Congress. I would've been Barbara Lee. Barbara Lee, and I served together and I would've been Barbara Lee. But some people, you know, they come from a district and the district says, how can you be unpatriotic at this time? - Right. It hasn't taken long for the American people to wake up. - That's true for short, - I think that is a good sign because all the propaganda, the lies have been stripped away. The propaganda has been seen through. And I think the American people are pretty clear about it. - Well, has our community become a little less positive about the military because of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" because of all the people that have been kicked out? I mean, doesn't it make us wonder a little bit more, whether this is a good institution or not? - I mean, I can't speak on behalf of the whole community. - Yes, of course. - But it's hard to tell. - Just your opinion anyway. - You know, I mean, I think there's a lot more cynicism. My sense is there's a lot more cynicism about, like we had these sort of patriot ideals. We were all kind of spun up after 911 and it did get kind of lost . It really was lost that opportunity. And what I fear is not only just the war, but, it turning into an occupation was the latest that I've heard and the lives that this has affected, not only current service members, but the people who come home with psychological issues, who so many more people are surviving the roadside bombs. And so you have people with, the amputees and the missing limbs and the damage and the healthcare costs, and all that's gonna take to heal those who were asked to serve and that cost, and that impact is gonna continue on for the next 50 years. - And they're already beginning to see the homeless vets. - Yep. - I mean, the impact, the long term impact . Well, I mean, the, it's an interesting challenge for our community, I think, because and hopefully what our community will do is to continue to affirm the idea of choice and of a military of a, as a, as an employer of the military, as an option that we need to have our, a rightful access to, but also champion whatever emerges from this time. If I'm right, if my prognostication is right, there will be new ideas about different way to organize society. There will be challenged to the empire. There will be challenged to the kind of, to fundamentalist ideas, whether they're Islamic or Christian, and the kind of the idea of the sort of democratic ideals and ideals of equality and liberty and justice for all will reemerge in some new energy and momentum. And we can kind of come together behind those and not just behind sort of issue by issue, whether it's gay in the military or whether it's, you know, (indistinct) - Well there was the other thing, when you were talking about Randy Shilt's book, I was thinking about the thoughts about whether we really would change the military. I mean, there was a sort of a question about whether women in the military, there were those that said bad, bad, bad, you know, they shouldn't be there, but there was also this sort of funny feeling that, well, maybe women in the military would have some kind of an effect on whether the military was so patriarchal anymore, or everybody would serve well. And they would say, oh, well, you know, it's okay. And then they said, the first time they bring a woman home in a body bag, it's gonna be all over for America. Well, that didn't happen. I mean, we've seen it. And people went the other way and said, you see, you know, women serve just as well. And it's a tragedy, but no greater tragedy. That's a funny kind of equality. But what--- - A mother's loss of her daughter is no greater than a mother's loss of her son. - Right. But I think what, you might also be gesturing at is the possibility that in some sense, queering the military could soften the military. My own sense based on the data is it doesn't work like that. Look at Israel, which is one of the most highly militarized societies in the world. They've allowed gays and lesbians to serve for 15 years, allowing gays and lesbians to serve will bring along many positive changes, less violence against women, less wasted talent, less suicide, fewer Arabic linguists fired, but it's not going to make the military anything different than the military. (indistinct) - Every time you see (indistinct) you know, that movie where it's like, you think, I think I understand this guy. I mean, it's like, you have to toughen him up or else you're gonna die out there. - [Zoe] Right. - You know, there are certain skills that you have to have. And I saw the same thing talking to the guy, to the grunts on the ground, in Vietnam, where they become people they were not at home. And having to shake that when they get home was, was a hard thing for them too. A lot of them read up because they couldn't go home. They didn't know how to go home being the person, that they were. And I don't think that's just about our community because we're not all that different really when you look across our community. So what do you see for the future, for the, let's talk about this sort of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. - Sure. And I just, if I could step back for one second, I'm fascinated how the conversation has arced back and forth between ideas about radical transformation and then also very mainstreaming ideas. So it's interesting that we're kind of in that space, but-- - [Sheila] We do this all the time Aaron. you can come back sometime. - I would love to. (laughing) All of the data indicate that change is inevitable. Eight national polls have been done over the last three years. That show that between 58 and 79% of the public favors, allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly, majority of Republicans want repeal. Majority of regular church goers want repeal, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff published in op-ed in the New York times saying we can do this and repeal will help the military. The media is unanimously in favor of repeal. - [Torie] The democratic candidates for President. - Yeah. So it may take 20 years. It may take two years. It's impossible to know when change will occur, but change will occur. - And will that make a difference? - Absolutely. I think allowing folks to serve. I serve as the co-chair of Service Members, Legal Defense Networks Board, and we work every day with service members who call in we're kinda like the 911 when a service member's being investigated or they maybe wanna get out, but they wanna do it in a way that they get honorable discharge 'cause they can't take it anymore. And so providing legal assistance, but also trying to, overturn the policy and, lobbying on Capitol Hill. And you know, what we're really saying is it will make a difference. We'll make a difference for the lives of service members. They don't have to, they can just serve and be focused on the mission instead of worrying about losing their career, if they let something slip out or the loss of it or someone investigating them. So I think it'll make a tremendous different personally for the lives, but in terms of the military's effectiveness and how it goes on, it'll be probably very similar to the British military's experience where it's kinda like no big whoop. - Well, I wonder if that's the case, if that'll set us free more to participate in anti-war issues provided that we separate, which I think a lot of people, it's not just rhetoric saying, I can be against the war and still support the troops. I mean, they're sent there, you know, it's not like everybody said me, you know me, right. I wanna go right over there, but do you think that'll free us up? I mean. - [Torie] I do. I mean, in the same way that I think that the more we get civil unions and marriage equality and, or even domestic partnership benefits, I think the more we achieve certain equality and certainly the more that it's not a big whoop for us to be in the military openly, the more it does free us as a movement and as individual people to start keeping our eye on a different prize. And I would say that over the next 10 years, we're really gonna have an opportunity to join with others, to try to reinvigorate what this country is about so that it's not just about, Anna Nicole Smith's funeral. And I mean, really the obsession with small and meaningless things has become almost insane in this country when you have such deep, deep issues globally, whether it's AIDS, whether it's through the mental health of the, and the physical disability of the folks coming back from Iraq, I mean, pick your issue. There's a lot of change that needs to happen. And there's a lot of kind of, you know, rebuilding a new vision for this world. And there's great days ahead as we start to sort of privilege peace over violence. - Well, the participation too, of gay lesbian people individually in every movement in leadership, in the military, in, the academic research arenas in the 501c3's, I mean, we don't even have an inventory where historically or currently of how many people have been involved in so many things. And I really see it as an ongoing dialogue kind of, or trial, or I don't even know what you call it because everywhere you look, there's one of us there. I mean-- - The Senate. The state Senate. - Well, the state Senate. - The mayor's office. - Yes, the mayor's office, but it's not just, you know, it's not just that. I mean, people running for office, people getting into, there's not very many openly gay or lesbian people in Congress. And I think that actually is a very important place for people to start looking at because it's a smaller district than mine even to have a congressional district people can do it. - But it's less and less about us. And it's more and more about higher ideals that we come to represent alongside other people. I think I really do. I think that our movement will always be important, but increasingly it's about healing the world and transforming it. - I agree. But our... What I'm saying is our presence as a gay person, I don't go, I don't come onto the floor every day and say, hi, Senator lesbian here. You know, I mean, it's, that's not what it is. - [Torie] Right. - But everybody knows, now they can no longer say they never met one for one thing. - [Torie] Right. - And it's the same in, you know, in every one of the professions, the academia is not incredibly welcoming all the time, either. All, I mean is that I think the familiarity of it is a part of healing the world because prejudice and discrimination are part of the disease, I think. So that could be a closing, but we have about two minutes left. Believe it or not a whole hour's gone by. any sort of closing thoughts, things that you said yeah, I wish I would've said this one thing. - I do. - Go Aaron. - But did you? - No, no, no, go ahead. - Sure. I think one kind of little data point that taps into one of the most beautiful things that you said is that increasingly the data, the polling is showing that straight people are looking at the gays in the military issue as a bellwether, that indicates that the military is on the wrong side of culture and on the wrong side of history. And strangely enough, when you think about recruiting, the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is not just about getting gays in the military, but there are a whole bunch of middle American straight people who wouldn't touch the institution because of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" the poll, show this. So when we think about building bridges, there's some kind of, there are some interesting possibilities for doing that. - So I think we're just talking about fairness here and how America's always kind of loved fairness and thought that we were about equality. And thank you very much, Zoe. Thank you, Erin. Thank you, Torie, as always. Thank you all for being with us. No matter which side of the divide you may be on, if you are for it or against it, as long as you're involved, just get used to it. (upbeat music)