"Ask Not" asks whether the U.S. military can afford to continue excluding volunteers whose only supposed flaw is that they refuse to deny their homosexuality.
The documentary argues that it cannot: that with two active wars, America needs the services of all its citizens.
Despite the recruitment challenges since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, the military has discharged hundreds of gay personnel, including scores of linguists at a time when language skills are desperately needed by troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
"Ask Not" presents a strong argument, with compelling interviews with gay veterans booted out of the military after running afoul of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy that allows gays to serve as long as they remain, in a phrase from a gay Coast Guard retired admiral, "silent and celibate."
The policy dates to a national debate in the early 1990s and a compromise that President Clinton struck with military leaders and others who opposed allowing homosexuals in the military at all.
"Ask Not" is a timely and balanced account of a major social issue now pending in Washington. President Obama has asked for a review of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Congressional action would be needed.
For the most part, the documentary follows veterans as they take their cause on a tour of radio talk shows and before other audiences. At a Southern college, they watch as cadets sing out a homophobic marching cadence; a caller to a talk show asks, "Would you rather be in a foxhole with John Wayne or Liberace?"
There are also gay-rights activists who try to enlist and are turned away when they announce they're homosexuals.
In Shreveport, La., a Marine recruiter keeps his cool while explaining that the federal law prohibits him from allowing the two to enlist. A sit-in ensues and the cops are called. Everybody stays polite.
The most powerful scenes involve an active-duty soldier -- his face obscured -- who is followed from a farewell lunch with friends in San Francisco to service in Iraq.
After his tour in Iraq, he goes to Paris and then the U.S. military cemetery at Normandy. With that most dramatic backdrop, he explains how deploying to a war zone has changed him.
"Before this," he says, "I'd tell you, 'I'm a gay American.' Now I'd tell you, 'I'm a soldier who happens to be gay.' "
The moral is clear: The dominant factor should be service, not sexuality.
