Since so few gay men and lesbians would come out after the lifting of the ban, it is even more unlikely that lifting the ban would diminish unit cohesion. In other words, in spite of the military's reasoning, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" does little to preserve unit cohesion.

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Although much research has been published that challenges the policy, the U.S. government and the military continue to support "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," and the law continues to devastate many glbtq service members' lives. According to the Service Members Legal Defense Network (SLDN)--a nonprofit organization that provides legal counsel to glbtq service members who have been discharged--1250 service members were discharged under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" in 2001. Since the law's implementation, the U.S. military has fired over 7,800 gltbq personnel.

As activists have pointed out, not only does "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" harm individual service members, but it also costs the military and U.S. taxpayers dearly. Conservative estimates place the financial costs of the current policy at over $230 million since 1994. But the cost to military effectiveness and governmental integrity may be even more staggering, if difficult to quantify.

As proponents of lifting the ban have pointed out, the ban promotes a hostile working environment, wastes crucial resources on unnecessary investigations, and forces many qualified service members to leave the military, depriving the services of many needed talents.

Moreover, by officially condoning discrimination, the military contradicts the democratic values it is supposed to protect and further alienates itself from the civilian sector. In 2002, a poll by the Gallup organization found that 72 percent of the public supports the right of gays and lesbians to serve in uniform.

A study by Laura Miller and John Allen Williams confirms this increasing schism between military leadership and civilians. It found that 56 percent of civilians responded affirmatively to a survey asking if they thought gay men and lesbians should be allowed to serve openly in armed forces.

As Williams reported to the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military, "The military is a reflection of the society it exists to defend, and American society is becoming more tolerant of different lifestyle choices. Sooner or later these changes will filter into the military."

Even sociologist Charles Moskos, the primary author of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," has begun to qualify his position. In January 2003, he announced that he would support allowing known gays and lesbians to serve in the military if the U.S. were to reinstitute the draft. "If an open gay said, 'I want to go into the army,' it would be his prerogative," Moskos said. "Of course, there would be problems with that, there would be hassles, but they probably could be overcome."

Moskos has claimed that the draft represents a higher virtue in his mind than the right of glbtq people to serve in a volunteer military, and in the context of a draft, he sees the gay ban as an easy way to avoid military service for any soldier who might identify as gay, truthfully or not. But his willingness to consider lifting the ban even in this particular case further casts doubt on the legitimacy of the exclusion of glbtq people from the military.

If the closet has served to institutionalize homosexuality as shameful and inferior vis-à-vis the legitimate heterosexual culture, it has also provided a space of possibility for subversive sexual and political acts.

The United States military's relation to homosexuality is complex and contradictory, defining itself explicitly in opposition to homosexuality, but nevertheless facilitating the very behavior and identity it seeks to exclude.

The Uniform Code of Military Justice, adopted in 1950, is the fountainhead of the United States' military's discriminatory policies toward homosexual personnel.

Long active in the glbtq community, Miriam Ben-Shalom was the first gay or lesbian servicemember to be reinstated to her position in the United States military after being discharged for her sexual orientation.

The highest-ranking official in the United States military to acknowledge her homosexuality while in the service, Colonel Margarethe Cammermeyer served a number of years in the Washington State National Guard as an open lesbian.

Openly gay U. S. congressman Barney Frank has been a leader not only in the cause of gay and lesbian rights but also on issues including fair housing, consumer rights, banking, and immigration.

By challenging the United States Air Force's ban and gay and lesbian service members, Leonard P. Matlovich, Jr. became one of the glbtq community's most visible activists in the 1970s.

Romer v. Evans (1996) marks the first time in its history that the U. S. Supreme Court recognized lesbians and gay men as worthy and deserving of equal rights.