Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Do Argue

Ongoing arguments over gays in the military, and Don't Ask, Don't Tell, here: Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and Don’t Even Pretend to Be Fair–Part I: Don’t Ask | NewsReal Blog

Regardless of whether you are for or against open homosexuality in the military, you have to be dismayed at how badly biased media coverage of this issue has become. Indeed, it seems that, to the Big Media, there is only one legitimate and morally correct point of view, and that is to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and to allow gays to serve openly within the ranks.

The Washington Post, for instance, published a symposium on Feb. 7 entitled, “How to Change ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’” Not one of the Posts’s six contributors defends the current policy of permitting gays to serve discreetly, but not openly – and none of the contributors even tries to grapple with the arguments and reasons for keeping the U.S. military free of open homosexuality.

Instead, the contributors all blithely assume that every bright and reasonable, good and decent person must be all for allowing gays to serve openly — and that opponents of repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” must be reactionary reprobates.

In fact, one contributor, Michael Buonocore, dismisses supporters of the current policy as mere obstructionists who have “petty concerns,” which the senior brass would do well to immediately bulldoze over and destroy.
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...before we change a policy that most soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines believe has been successful, how about having a free and fair, open and honest, informed and substantive, freewheeling and robust debate?

Shouldn’t such a debate, in fact, be required before changing any successful and longstanding military policy? And shouldn’t the media help to effect (instead of stymie) such a debate?