Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Don't Kill

It's no big deal, really, just another casualty of the failed Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy of discrimination. Another gay member of the military is out of a job.

Only this one wasn't fired. He was murdered.

Seaman August Provost's body was found in a guard shack on Camp Pendleton this past Tuesday; a “person of interest” was taken into custody in connection with the suspected homicide. An autopsy was performed, but no cause of death has been released. The Navy isn't saying whether Provost's orientation had anything to do with the death.

Seaman Provost's boyfriend, Kaether Cordero, has said that Provost was openly gay, and that some of Provost's friends knew but that he trusted them. In recent days, however, Provost complained that someone was harassing him; his sister advised him to tell his superiors.

But, according to Ben Gomez of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network [SLDN], an advocacy group for gays in the military, “while Don't Ask, Don't tell is in place, anybody in the military who is a homosexual has no place to go to get assistance or counseling.”

August Provost, had he gone to his superiors and complained about the harassment, might have been fired from the military.

But he'd still be alive.