sure, quickly tagged by the American media with the
phrase “don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t pursue,” based on
its main points. The bill was passed by Congress on
November 20, 1993, becoming Public Law 103-160.
The provisions of the law focused attention on
the necessity of maintaining in the armed forces a
high level of morale, discipline, and unit cohesion
and stressed that the conditions of the military life
were fundamentally different from the civilian
world, stating that “the prohibition against homo-
sexual conduct is a long-standing element of mili-
tary law that continues to be necessary in the unique
circumstances of military service.” The standards of
military conduct were seen as regulating the lives of
all enlisted personnel at all times, whether on or off
post, with the prior prohibition of homosexual acts
and any solicitation for them expanded to allow sep-
aration from the armed forces if “the member has
stated that he or she is a homosexual or bisexual, or
words to that effect” or if the individual had married
or tried to wed a member of his or her gender. Spe-
cific changes from the earlier portions of the UCMJ
governing military personnel were that officers
could not ask service members about their sexual
orientation, nor were members required to reveal
this information, both provisions being seen as mak-
ing the situation for homosexuals more tolerable
while avoiding confrontation.
Impact Between the implementation of the new
policy in 1993 and the end of the decade, 5,475 indi-
viduals were separated from the four branches of the
U.S. armed forces because of their gay, lesbian, or
bisexual orientation. Questioning about sexual ori-
entation at the time of induction stopped, while
prosecutions for homosexuality declined, as did in-
vestigations aimed at uncovering the presence of en-
listed gay, lesbian, or bisexual men and women at
military posts. The brutal 1999 beating murder of
Army private Barry Winchell at Fort Campbell, Ken-
tucky, who was presumed to be gay and had been ha-
rassed by his fellow soldiers without interference
from superior officers to stop the actions, led to the
issuance of new guidelines on antigay harassment
and an executive order from President Clinton pro-
viding for enhanced sentences under the UCMJ for
hate crimes. In February, 2000, the Pentagon added
the phrase “don’t harass” to the title of the policy.
A unique nonprofit organization, the Service
Members Legal Defense Network, was formed in
1993 to serve as a source of legal advice for individu-
als affected by “don’t ask, don’t tell” and to act as a
watchdog group on military policies of exclusion.
Among its stated goals were the elimination on the
ban of openly gay men and lesbians from serving in
the U.S. armed forces and support for active service
members and veterans organizing a visible presence
at gay pride events.
A major casualty of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” pol-
icy was the military’s long-standing contention that
homosexuals could not fulfill complex responsibili-
ties adequately, a position that had been only rarely
rebutted in public debate. For the first time in over
two decades, women and men dismissed from ser-
vice went public with accounts of their (in some
cases highly distinguished and meritorious) careers
cut short by official strictures. Colonel Margarethe
Cammermeyer, the highest-ranking officer ever to
be discharged from the U.S. military for being ho-
mosexual, challenged “don’t ask, don’t tell.” She
filed suit in federal court in Seattle in 1992 on the
day she was terminated from the service, and she
successfully won reinstatement as chief nurse of the
Washington National Guard, a story she subse-
quently told in her book,Serving in Silence(1994).
Naval midshipman Joseph Steffan, dismissed from
the Naval Academy at Annapolis a week before grad-
uation in 1987, wrote the 1992 accountHonor Bound,
continuing the tradition begun by Ensign Vernon
Berg in his 1978 groundbreaking account,Get Off My
Ship.Even an Army lawyer, James Kennedy, came out
as gay and began actively working to overturn poli-
cies he had lately been enforcing.
Perhaps the most damaging blows to the govern-
ment’s case logic were investigations into the historyThe Nineties in America Don’t ask, don’t tell 265
Number of Homosexual Military
Personnel Discharged, 1994-1999Year Year Total
1994 617
1995 772
1996 870
1997 1,007
1998 1,163
1999 1,046