Quote:
Originally Posted by August
What do you mean by third party?
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Under DADT, if a third party (another person in the military) reports to the commander that "that guy is gay" the commander can not investigate any further unless there is evidence of a crime. The military was only supposed to kick people out if the homosexual military member self identified. That's the whole purpose of DADT
1. The military does not ask.
2. The homosexual military member does not tell (meaning exhibit homosexual behaviors)
Even with DADT, homosexual behavour is still against the UCMJ. But if a military member does not engage in homosexual behavour but one of his buddies finds out about it, the homosexual member is not supposed to be "asked" (Don't ask don't tell).
The problem is that commanders have not been following the letter of the law. Military members who have not engaged in homosexual behavour nor have they self-confessed have been and still were (up until recently) discharged based on a third party identification (or "outing")
When I was in the military as a Security Officer, I had to interview members for accesses. One of the questions we used to ask pertained to homosexuality. When DADT passed, I not only could not ask any of our homosexual questions, if I knew that the person was a homosexual or if I were told the person was a homosexual, I could not act on that knowledge or information, unless the member self-confessed. That was how DADT was supposed to work.
One of the reasons I am in favour of repealing DADT is that the military, over the years, drifted away from following the law. Commanders were considering the fact that a member told another member that they were homosexual counted as an official self-confession. And that is not how it was supposed to work.