‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Poses Exorbitant Costs to the Military and Nation
Nearly 800 specialists with critical skills have been fired from the U.S. military under DADT, including 323 linguists, 55 of whom specialized in Arabic (Government Accountability Office report).
At least 65,000 gay, lesbian and bisexual Americans are already protecting our homeland (Urban Institute report). More than 10,000 have been discharged under DADT since the policy was implemented in 1993.
American taxpayers have paid between $250 million and $1.2 billion to investigate, eliminate and replace qualified, patriotic service members who want to serve their country but can’t because expressing their sexual orientation violates DADT (Government Accountability Office report). That money could be better spent on at least a dozen Blackhawk helicopters, armored plates for tanks and Humvees or Kevlar body armor for troops.
U.S. military forces cannot afford to lose any troops who can do their jobs, as evidenced by recent call-ups of the Army Reserve.