DADT

There’s been a great deal of concern around here about the effort to prepare the US military for the full repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT), and I’ve had a few words of my own regarding how long the process might take.

There was a hearing before the House Armed Services Committee last Thursday that had all four Services represented; with one exception these were the same Service Chiefs that were testifying last December when the bill to set the repeal process in motion was still a piece of prospective legislation.

At that time there was concern that the “combat arms” of the Marines and the Army were going to be impacted in a negative way by the transition to “open service”; the Commandant of the Marine Corps and the Army’s Chief of Staff were the most outspoken in confirming that such concerns exist within the Pentagon as well.

We now have more information to report—including the increasing desperation of some of our Republican friends—and if you ask me, I think things might be better than we thought.

I had the MSNBC on last Thursday night, and Lawrence O’Donnell was talking to Ari Berman of “The Nation” about the new Obama Campaign Chief of Staff, Jim “Not Part Of Loggins &” Messina.

In the course of that conversation O’Donnell said something about the recent repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) legislation that suggests to me that he could use a short reminder of how that legislation fits into the larger view of what the LBGT community is looking for as the march toward true civil rights continues.

Luckily for Mr. O’Donnell, I am available to help him out on this one; that’s why today we’re going to audit “LBGT Agenda 101”—or at least the “Cliff’s Notes” version, anyway.

I just can't quite get my arms wrapped around this policy. It is okay for a homosexual man to take a shower with a heterosexual man and just fine for a lesbian woman to be around when a heterosexual woman washes herself off, just as long as those homosexuals haven't told someone openly that they are gay.

So we got the good news that legislative repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy that kept LBGT folks from openly serving in the military has occurred, as the Senate voted Saturday to first cut off debate on the question (that’s the vote that required 60 Senators to pass) and then to pass the actual repeal legislation (which also garnered more than 60 Senate votes, even though it only needed 51).

Most people would assume that once Bill (remember Bill, from Schoolhouse Rock?) made it out of Congress and over to the President to for a signature that the process of repeal will be ended—but in fact, there’s quite a bit more yet to do, and it’s entirely possible that a year or more could go by before the entire process is complete.

Today we’ll discuss our way through why it’s going to take so long; to illustrate the point we’ll consider an actual military order that is quite similar to the sort of work that will be required from the Department of Defense (DOD) before the entire “DADT to open service” transition is complete.

I took a couple of weeks off, as Thanksgiving and snow came around (a subject we’ll address in a day or so), but we are all again occupied as lots of things we’ve been talking about either will or won’t come to pass, and it seems like all that’s happening all at once.

Today we’ll take on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT); this because the Pentagon’s top leadership just came out and reported that revocation of the policy, following a period of preparation, would be their preferred way to go.

There will be lots of others who will take on the question of what’s right and wrong here, and exactly how implementation might occur; my interest is, instead, to focus on one little fact that makes all teh rest of the conversation a lot more relevant.

That is the fact that about 70,000 LBGT troops serve in the military today, DADT notwithstanding, and, that if it wasn’t for DADT, almost 45,000 more troops would be serving that aren’t today.

And that one little fact leads to today’s Great Big Question: exactly how much military would 115,000 troops be, exactly?

Stories begat other stories, or at least they do for me; this two-part conversation came from a comment that was made after I posted a story suggesting that voting matters this time, especially if you don’t want environmental disasters like the recent Hungarian “toxic lake” that burst from its containment and polluted the Danube River happening in your neighborhood.

Long story short, we are going to be moving on to ask what, for some, is a more fundamental question: if you’re an LBGT voter, and the Democratic Party hasn’t, to put it charitably, “been all they could be” when it comes to issues like repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell” or the Federal Defense of Marriage Act...what should you do?

Now normally I would be the one trying to develop an answer to the question, but instead, we’re going to be posing the question to a group of experts, and we’ll be letting them give the answers.

And just because you, The Valued Reader, deserve the extra effort, for Part Two we’ve trying to get you a “Special Bonus Expert” to add some input to the conversation: a Democratic Member of Congress who represents a large LBGT community.

Don't ask, don't tell, just do your f**king job:

Burr said he hasn’t seen compelling evidence that "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" has hurt the military’s readiness or the size and strength of the armed services. "Those folks can still fight. They’re fighting today," Burr said.

First of all, Dick, our men and women in uniform are not just assembly-line robots that fight our wars for us, they're people. They hope and dream and love and fear, just like civilians. Second of all, there are about 13,500 of them who are not fighting today because of this stupid regulation.

Breaking a few moments ago is news that the Senate Armed Services committee has passed an amendment that would significantly move the military closer toward repealing 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'. Secretary of State Elaine Marshall released the following statement where she rebuked her Republican opponent for voting against restoring equality in the military.

"Richard Burr is once again on the wrong side of history; he’s stuck in the past. Don't Ask Don't Tell' doesn't work for our national security or our values. We need to honor the commitment of ALL men and women who want to serve, and end this policy of discrimination. I'm pleased by the move today toward repealing DADT and I urge the Senate to repeal this policy by the end of the year."

An amendment to repeal the policy passed the Senate Armed Services Committee today in a vote of 16-12. Burr, not surprisingly, voted against it.

I wanted to share Cal Cunningham's recent statement on the hopeful, if not quite complete, progress being actively pursued on Capitol Hill towards the necessary repeal of the U.S. Military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy.

As anyone on BlueNC likely knows, I am a fervent Cunningham supporter and volunteer. But, as a member of PFLAG Winston-Salem and a long time champion of equality for all Americans, statements and a vision such as this one only reassures and validates my support of this great U.S. Senate candidate even further.