Once again the kind of fearful politicians who try to keep both ears to the ground, lest they miss the slightest tremor in ever-fickle public opinion, have shied away from doing the right thing. In favor of, well, not doing much of anything about a continuing source of confusion and contention.

The U.S. Senate had an opportunity this past week to rectify a long-standing injustice, and allow homosexuals to serve in the U.S. military openly and honorably, instead of having to live a lie. Whether by pretending to be something they’re not – straight – or keeping their mouths shut. Either way, the current, official policy (Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell) treats homosexuality as a shameful secret instead of the fact of life it is.

Whatever its evasive wording, the message this policy sends is clear enough: Volunteer to serve your country, and, if you’re different from the rest of us where sexuality is concerned, you’ll be humiliated. It’s a message worthy of a schoolyard bully, only it’s being sent by the U.S. Senate.

Instead of voting to end this ongoing charade, the senators decided to … delay. Even though everybody knows what justice delayed is: justice denied.

Once again. Tuesday’s vote in the Senate was a profile in something other than courage in the face of prejudice – and election-year jitters.

Everybody knows, or should, that this charade can’t go on indefinitely. It’s only a matter of time before homosexuals are allowed to serve their country in uniform like everybody else, without shame or evasion. And yet Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell remains policy.

Why? The usual excuses were rolled out, and they were as unconvincing as ever:

More debate is necessary.

The question needs more study.

The Defense Department needs to conduct still another review.

As if this question hadn’t been debated, studied and reviewed for – how long now, 10, 20 years? It was in 1993 that Bill Clinton, that master of equivocation, struck this strange compromise between just doing right and appeasing popular prejudice. As commander-in-chief, he was more a negotiator-in-chief, triangulating even when it came to a basic issue of principle.

What a contrast with a real commander-in-chief like Harry Truman, who simply issued an executive order abolishing racial discrimination in the armed forces and told his generals to work out the details. They did. But this issue has been kept alive for divisive decades by politicians who refuse to make a simple, straightforward decision.

The strangest excuse for the Senate’s inaction last week was that this bill already had too many riders attached. That excuse can be exposed in just a few words, and they were uttered in the course of this debate by Michigan’s Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee:

“One can argue that there are provisions in this bill which should not be in this bill. Fine. Debate them. Vote on them.” Instead, a willful minority of the Senate couldn’t be bothered to do the right thing. Or even debate doing the right thing.

This time the bill that would finally have ended this demeaning policy fell four votes short of the magic number – 60 – that’s needed to get a proposal to the floor of the Senate.

Result: Those waiting for justice are told to wait still longer. They’re told the time isn’t right yet. As if there were a wrong time to do right. This divisive issue should have been put behind all of us years ago, yet it remains unresolved – a recurring disservice both to those discriminated against and the military as a whole, which has more pressing matters to attend to than hunting down homosexuals.

Under the current policy, homosexuals are treated neither as full citizens nor as automatic rejects for military service. They’re somewhere in between, always under a cloud, not daring to tell the truth lest it cost them their careers.

This is the opposite of what military honor should demand. Every junior officer is told to always tell the truth, however inconvenient or embarrassing or incriminating. Doing anything less could put the mission at risk, not to mention the lives of those under his command. But in this case members of the military are told to evade the truth. Dishonor, thy name is Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

Quite apart from this policy’s being inconsistent with the military’s code of honor, treating a soldier’s sexuality as a shameful secret can prove mighty expensive. Take it from a senator with an independent streak – Joe Lieberman. He was Al Gore’s running mate in the presidential election of 2000 – remember? By 2008, he was backing John McCain, the Republican candidate for president. His official designation in the Senate is Independent Democrat, and he remains as independent as ever. And as forthright.

Last week he reminded his colleagues that since DADT – an abbreviation as awkward as the policy it stands for – was adopted, $6 million has been spent training some 14,000 members of the armed services who had to be discharged after their sexuality became known. That’s the equivalent of an entire division we’ve lost. At a time when the country needs all the troops it can recruit.

And that’s only a small part of how much this idiocy is costing the taxpayers. A few years back (2006), a study commission led by a former secretary of defense – William Perry – found that each of those discharges costs the taxpayers an average of $42,835 to pursue. The running total for all those discharges now stands at some $600 million. Idiotic is an understatement when it comes to describing this (non) policy. Whether you reckon the cost in honor or just dollars, injustice can be mighty expensive.

© 2010 TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.