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Anti-gay comments 'not cool ... anymore'
May 19, 2012|By Matthew Hay Brown, The Baltimore Sun
That last part was the key argument for so long against repealing the policy, and clearly those fears were unfounded.
May 19, 2012|By Matthew Hay Brown, The Baltimore Sun
When his roommate at the Naval Academy joked last year that Andrew Atwill was a homosexual, the midshipman told him to cut it out.
His friend didn't know it, Atwill says, but he really was gay — and under the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, it could have jeopardized his military career.
This year, the first since the Clinton-era policy was repealed, Atwill says change has come to the academy. And talking about his sexual orientation, rather than being a career-ending offense, has rallied midshipmen to his defense.
"Pretty much everybody in my company knows now" about his sexual orientation, he said, and "they actually stand up for me." If his friends hear someone say a negative remark about homosexuality, he said, they "don't hesitate" to tell that person "it's not cool to do that anymore."
Eight months after the repeal, midshipmen both gay and straight describe a quiet but significant transformation at the Naval Academy. Gay midshipmen are seeking recognition for a student club. Last month, for the first time, faculty members and staff attended an off-campus dinner that had been organized secretly every year by and for gay midshipmen.
And Atwill and his boyfriend, classmate Nick Bonsall, went together Saturday to the Ring Dance, a formal ball held each spring for third-year midshipmen.
"It's been really great, actually," Bonsall, 20, of Middletown, Del., said of life at the academy since repeal. "Everyone has been really accepting of us."
The experience at Annapolis this year mirrors those at the other service academies, but some future officers worry about what happens after they graduate. While their generation might be accepting, the broader military comprises people of all ages and backgrounds. Some senior officers say privately that they won't come out for fear of jeopardizing their careers.
Across the military, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said recently, the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell — once highly controversial — is "going very well."
"It's not impacting on morale," he told reporters after receiving a report on the subject this month. "It's not impacting on unit cohesion. It's not impacting on readiness."
That last part was the key argument for so long against repealing the policy, and clearly those fears were unfounded.