Students ask for ‘don’t ask’ repeal

Ema Alsina helped organize a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ protest outside Marsh Chapel last April, hoping the policy would become a thing of the past by the time President Barack Obama took office. However, the president announced that he wanted to investigate further before making a final decision, bursting her rainbow-colored bubble.

‘ ‘I was really disappointed in Obama because this makes no sense,’ Alsina, a College of Arts and Sciences junior, said.

‘Don’t ask, don’t tell,’ is a law that prohibits military officials from asking enlistees about their sexual orientation and bars gays from discussing their sexuality that has been in effect since 1993.

Alsina said an investigation into the effects of repealing the law is a waste of time.

‘There are gay people who will fight and die to protect their country when the country is not giving them full rights,’ she said.

Shelby Condray, a School of Theology graduate, was arrested in Times Square last May after refusing to leave a military recruitment center while fellow protester Jacob Reitan tried to enlist as an openly gay American.

Condray said he thinks Obama, like past politicians, was afraid to take a definitive stance on the issue because he feared alienating constituents.

‘It’s stalling. Right now, it’s saying, ‘I don’t want to spend the political capital because it’s not an issue that enough people care about’,’ Condray said.

Delaying the repeal of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ reminded Condray of Obama’s choice of Rick Warren, an opponent of gay marriage, to deliver the invocation at Obama’s inauguration, Condray said.

‘I think it’s the same thing. It shows a dramatic lack of interest, a willingness to throw the gay community under a bus if it’s politically expedient,’ Condray said.

Boston University School of Law constitutional law professor Tracey Maclin said the only justification behind the law was prejudice.

‘Gays and lesbians that serve in the military should have the same equal protection rights that others in the military have,’ he said. ‘The justifications . . . just don’t justify the discrimination. You have to provide some justification that goes beyond prejudice.’

Maclin said an investigation of whether the policy is unconstitutional is unnecessary.

‘There is no need to investigate that gays and lesbians are being run out of military and aren’t being allowed to advance in their careers,’ he said. ‘It is unfair and unconstitutional.’

Justin Touchette, the vice president of Spectrum, BU’s gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender organization, said he hoped Obama would repeal the law eventually.

‘I don’t judge his [Obama’s] decision too harshly because he has many more [things] to consider than just the LGBT community,’ Touchette, a College of Communication sophomore, said in an email. ‘But, everyone is definitely counting on him to make big changes and repealing this law is one of the few changes that the queer community expected.’

Other BU students said they hoped the law would be repealed, but were happy that the Obama administration had decided to investigate first.

Pietroboni said she was concerned that discrimination could still occur even if the law was repealed.

‘It’s kind of like either with or without the law, people are still going to persecute gay people,’ she said.

H. Joachim Maitre, international relations professor and former director of military education at BU, said the problem was not with the law, but with the prejudice against homosexuality that is present in US culture.

‘The old prejudice of homosexuality . . . in a [military] unit is raising problems,’ he said. ‘The problem is with the prejudice, not the law.’

Maitre said the Obama administration should not be investigating the policy when there are other pressing issues at hand.

‘It offers no problems today . . . except for those who are homosexual,’ he said. ‘It is not an issue for him [Obama]. He is dealing with so many problems.’