The controversy surrounding the DOJ's brief in support of DADT continues to grow. We first wrote about the brief on Tuesday morning. Yesterday, DC Agenda reported that the brief inaccurately portrayed the testimony of DADT experts Aaron Belkin and Nathaniel Frank. Today, Belkin and Frank issued very strong statements calling out the DOJ. We just got their statements via email, and were told "This statement is our direct reaction to the distortion of our testimony by DOJ." Distortion:
Dr. Aaron Belkin, Director of Palm and Associate Professor of Political Science, University of California, Santa Barbara:The Obama administration has some explaining to do. Filing this brief was bad enough. And, the always seem to go the extra mile defending the anti-gay laws. Now, Obama's DOJ has to answer for the way it distorted the testimony of Belkin and Frank.The DOJ totally misconstrued what I said about privacy in my deposition. Its lawyers have been utterly disingenuous about my statements in suggesting that I claimed there is a rational basis for the privacy arguments; I claimed no such thing. As I have been arguing for a decade, it is absolutely true that some service members are uncomfortable in the presence of gay troops, but that simply does not constitute a rational basis for DADT. Gays and lesbians are already serving with straight service members, and the conditions in the barracks and the showers are not going to change after the repeal of the ban. If anything, the current policy exacerbates privacy concerns because it allows gays to serve but bars troops from knowing which of their peers are gay. If the Obama administration lawyers think that my remarks in any way constitute an acknowledgement of the rational basis for the privacy rationale, then they need a new legal team.Dr. Nathaniel Frank, Senior Research Fellow at Palm and author of Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America:I’m not sure that any person in good faith hearing what I had to say could conclude what the DOJ concluded in their request for summary judgment. Read the transcript. What I say is that having a concern about privacy is not irrational. But nowhere do I say that such concerns constitute a rational basis to discriminate against gays, anymore than concerns about red-haired troops would rationally justify banning red heads. What I also say is that even Gen. Powell's now-17-year-old remarks about privacy in the force make no sense as a defense of the gay ban. To the contrary, Powell correctly explains that military service is all about sacrificing privacy. How can you justify banning open gays to preserve privacy that doesn't exist?
