Placing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" In Historic Perspective

From the Chicago Tribune:

At a time when our military is desperate to recruit qualified men and women, when more than 80 percent of Americans oppose discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and when our national security depends on our credibility as a nation dedicated to the values of religious liberty, individual dignity and equal justice, it is deplorable that candidates for the White House still embrace and defend a policy that excludes tens of thousands of qualified Americans from military service and denies patriotic gays and lesbians the right to serve their nation unless they deny who they are, lie about their identity and return to the closet.

That sorrowful moment in the debate called to mind an earlier generation of American "leaders": the generation of Orval Faubus, Ross Barnett and Strom Thurmond. Exactly half a century ago, Gov. Faubus expressed his concept of "American values" by calling out the Arkansas National Guard to prevent nine African-American children from entering Little Rock's Central High School.

Several years later, Gov. Barnett rose to power in Mississippi by proclaiming that "the Negro is different because God made him different to punish him." A fierce defender of American values, Barnett ferociously opposed James Meredith's 1962 admission to the University of Mississippi, promising that Mississippi would never "surrender to the evil ... forces of tyranny."

While I would not place the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" discrimination at the level of the Little Rock situation, the similarity of excluding people based solely on how God made them is striking.