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Loading ...Neff: ‘Fighting Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’
“Our Constitution declares that from time to time, the President shall give to Congress information about the state of our union,” the president announced. And then he spoke to America for about 90 minutes Jan. 27 about the state of our union.
Barack Obama’s first State of the Union address contained 7,134 words, many of them explaining how we will overcome the financial crisis, reform health care, unburden future generations from the federal debt and fight terrorism while winding down two wars.I care about those issues and all the president’s words, but my job here is to focus on 32 words that came near the end of Obama’s address: “This year, I will work with Congress and our military to finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are.”
Applause followed those words from one side of the chamber.
A press release followed the president’s words from a senator on the other side of the chamber. John McCain, R-Ariz., who appears vulnerable in his re-election bid according to one recent poll, issued a statement: “In his State of the Union address, President Obama asked Congress to repeal the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy. I am immensely proud of, and thankful for, every American who wears the uniform of our country, especially at a time of war, and I believe it would be a mistake to repeal the policy.”
Before the president’s address, House Minority Leader John Boehner said of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” “I think it’s worked very well. And we just ought to leave it alone.”
Obama said he will work with Congress and the Pentagon to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” which bans gays and lesbians from serving openly in the Armed Forces and has resulted in the discharge of more than 13,500 personnel since 1994.
But as the president said later in his address, the change he promised as a candidate, including the repeal of the gay military ban, will not come easy. “Democracy in a nation of three hundred million people can be noisy and messy and complicated. And when you try to do big things and make big changes, it stirs passions and controversy. That’s just how it is.”
A partisan battle looms in this volatile election year and the fight over “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is going to get noisy and messy and complicated.
So we must be prepared to stir passions at the local level, in each House district, pushing challengers and incumbents as they campaign for our votes to recognize that the policy is unpopular.
Some telling statistics about “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell:”
• 73 percent of military personnel are comfortable with lesbians and gays.
• One in four U.S. troops who served in Afghanistan or Iraq knows a member of their unit who is gay.
• 60 percent of weekly churchgoers, 58 percent of conservatives, 58 percent of Republicans favor a repeal, according to a 2009 Gallup poll.
• 75 percent of Americans support gays serving openly, way up from the 44 percent in 1993, when the policy was adopted.
We must be prepared to stir controversy, pushing challengers and incumbents to explain simplistic statements such as “I believe it would be a mistake to repeal the policy” and “I think it’s worked very well.”
What is the measurement for success here?
That thousands of skilled servicemembers lost their jobs? That the military ousted more than 800 mission-critical troops and at least 59 Arabic and nine Farsi linguists in the last five years? That the policy encourages distrust, homophobia and violence?
This is a vital election year. The candidate or incumbent who campaigns with the position “we just ought to leave it alone” ought to know that he or she will be left alone and out of a job come November.
You know the old saying “All Politics is Local Politics”. I love the internet and I love how much information it provides. However, I think the saturation of national politics makes people forget that Congresspeople are elected in their home districts. Lisa is so very very right. Take this fight home. Take it way home.
It is an election year, and yes their future is in our hands. For all who made the overwhelming choice to elect President Obama into office now have to finish the job and elect a house and senate to compliment that choice. I have more compassion for the thousands of servicemembers who were discharged from the military because someone asked or someone told. I don’t think our men and women in the military are as fragile as they are being made out to be. Orders are made to be followed. Go back to the U.S.constitution. We could only wish the country would run as it did 200 years ago. It has gotten too big and wealthy. Lawmakers have passed so many laws to skirt other laws that we are drowning in our own legal system. It’s time to clean it up.
Imagine if Gay people refused to serve as a GROUP. We’d be label cowards, un-American and ungrateful! We want to serve so we’re rejected. IF the military is a society of orders being followed.( no laughing) why can’t they order acceptance. and enforce the order. People will feel the way they feel.
This is nothing more than delay tactics. Why does the military need a few more years to repeal it? What on earth is it waiting for? Hasn’t it looked at Canada, the UK and the rest of Europe, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Israel? What more proof does it need. Typical backward-thinking America! The western world is laughing at us. We’re supposed to be the leaders of the free world? What a crock, it can’t even get its act together and repeal the law immediately. It makes me sick to think we’re the trailer nation. Wake up America and show some leadership for a change.
It certainly does not take 1 year to study the DADT issue! It has been studied for 17 years,and it is NOT successful. All you have to do is look at the other countries who do not have this policy and they are SUCCESSFUL!
DADT does three things: first, advantage homophobes over everyone else; second, create a blackmail problem for LGBT servicemembers; third, throw red meat to Republican re-election campaigns. So it’s effective at that. But not effective at any important military goal.
If you are reading this, please immediately write four letters:
1. to the president asking him to issue an executive order suspending all discharges of LGBT military personnel until congress passes the law to repeal DADT and any ban on the military,
2. and 3. to your Senators politely demanding immediate action to repeal DADT, and
4. to your member of the House of representatives demanding immediate action to repeal DADT.
If, like me, you are a citizen of a United States ally, write to the President, Majority Leader Reid and Speaker Pelosi.
DO IT NOW!
When Gates claims that they need a year to study the issue because there are no previous military studies, that is just a lie. There have been dozens of previous studies, done both in and outside the military.
One recent such study is (Belken, et.al., “How to end don’t ask don’t tell”, Palm Center, available: http://www.palmcenter.org/publications/dadt/How+to+End+%22Don%27t+Ask,+Don%27t+Tell%22)
The Palm Center study contains a large bibliography of previous studies, conducted by the Navy, DOD, GAO, RAND, British MoD, universities, think tanks, and a number of retired generals.
All of those studies conclude that repealing allowing gays to serve will have no effect on readiness or morale, and that it can be done easily and quickly.
I can believe that it will take some time to draw up the order. But that should be a few days, perhaps a week. It certainly does not take a year to write a few paragraphs about something that has been so extensively studied.
The url in my previous note has an extra parenthesis appended, so it does not work. The correct url is:
http://www.palmcenter.org/publications/dadt/How+to+End+“Don’t+Ask,+Don’t+Tell”
Let’s try that again:
http://www.palmcenter.org/publications/dadt/How+to+End+%22Don%27t+Ask,+Don%27t+Tell%22
I think Winston Churchill said it best: “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.”
I believe, whole-heartedly, that DADT will be repealed…. It is just going to take a lot of work and perseverance.
This does NOT mean I am willing to relax my battle-readiness against the rabid right.
“Obama said he will work with Congress and the Pentagon to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” which bans gays and lesbians from serving openly in the Armed Forces and has resulted in the discharge of more than 13,500 personnel since 1994.”
Is this debate related to a shortage in additional personnel for Iraq, Afghanistan and else otherwise? – This question may sound cynical at first sight, but please think about it, as it is not meant to be cynical.