Profiles in Character #11 - Mike Mullen Takes a Stand
“Mr. Chairman, speaking for myself and myself only, it is my personal belief that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would be the right thing to do.”
- Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman, Joints Chiefs of Staff, February 2, 2010
Perhaps no mark of leadership is more sacred in the military than supporting and caring for one’s troops. Essential to build trust, morale and success in combat, glaring failures of such leadership have occurred. The treatment of gay and lesbian service members – and of LGBTQ citizens who wanted to serve - had long been one of them when Mike Mullen took a stand.
Prior to World War II, gay members of the military were court-martialed and dishonorably discharged. During the war, they were sent to military hospitals to be examined by psychiatrists. Michael Glenn Mullen was born just a year after that war ended. The conclusion of his 43-year naval career would see the full acceptance and integration of gay and lesbian members into the armed forces. Mullen gave that accomplishment a final, critical push.
As recently as 1957, the Navy’s Crittenden Report had advocated harsh anti-homosexual policies. "Homosexuality is wrong, it is evil, and it is to be branded as such,” the report said. In 1982, the Department of Defense issued a policy stating that, "Homosexuality is incompatible with military service," a threat to the need for “discipline, good order, and morale."
Sustained pressure from the gay and lesbian community would contribute greatly to a change, but the change would still take decades. In August 1992, Gen. Carl Mundy, Jr., Commandant of the Marine Corps, supported a paper authored by a Corps chaplain that said: "In the unique, intensely close environment of the military, homosexual conduct can threaten the lives, including the physical (e.g. AIDS) and psychological well-being of others".
In 1993, Bill Clinton, who had campaigned on removing the ban on gays serving in the armed forces, accepted a compromise known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT).” Gay, lesbian and bisexual individuals could still be prevented from joining or removed from service, but recruiters could not ask about sexual orientation and their removal could come only if overt behavior, such as coming out, revealed it. The Joint Chiefs had strongly opposed the new policy.
Court cases and political support by many Democrats and advocates ramped up pressure to repeal DADT and end the barriers to military service, and surveys revealed that large segments of military personnel saw no danger to operational readiness or performance among those they knew to be gay or lesbian. Yet the Joint Chiefs continued to resist, with Chairman Gen. Peter Pace saying in March 2007 that he supported DADT because "homosexual acts between two individuals are immoral and ... we should not condone immoral acts.”
Yet in November of that year, 28 retired generals and admirals urged Congress to repeal the policy, pointing out that 65,000 gay men and women were serving in the armed forces and that there were over a million gay veterans. Answering a cadet at the May 2008 West Point graduation, new Joint Chiefs Chairman Mullen indicated openness to removing DADT, suggesting Congress could legislate that.
President Obama, who had campaigned on removing the LGBTQ ban, urged Congress to act in his 2010 State of the Union Address. Support from active military leadership would be crucial to success, especially as opposition within the military and among many Republicans in Congress was still strong.
On February 2, Mullen became the first sitting Joint Chiefs Chairman to publicly testify that “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” should be repealed. Speaking in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee, he said: “No matter how I look at the issue, I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens,” he said. “For me personally, it comes down to integrity — theirs as individuals and ours as an institution.”
In his memoir Obama said that Mullen had not coordinated his testimony with the White House, yet “his unequivocal statement immediately shifted the public debate and created important political cover for fence-sitting senators, who could then feel justified in embracing the repeal.”
On December 18, 2010, the Senate passed the repeal bill, 65-31, completing Congressional action. President Obama signed the repeal into law on December 22nd in an auditorium at the Department of the Interior, with many military members present. As Obama recounted it, “the biggest applause that day was reserved for Mike Mullen – a long, heartfelt standing ovation. It wasn’t often, I thought, that a true act of conscience is recognized that way.”
Photo Credit: Department of Defense
