ABSTRACT
In the context of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” controversy, some gay rights proponents argued that the military’s current discriminatory policies against gays and lesbians were like the military’s historical discriminatory policies against blacks. They insisted that the rhetoric the military employed to justify and legitimize the politics of racial segregation in the armed forces was the same as the rhetoric the military employs to justify and legitimize the politics of “the closet” in the armed forces (Eskridge, 1997; Halley, 1989).
