It's an irony the latest -- and one of the biggest blows -- to the Pentagon's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy came late Thursday in a case brought by a Republican group. The Log Cabin Republicans describe themselves as "the nation's only organization of Republicans who support fairness, freedom, and equality for gay and lesbian Americans." Even though DADT was crafted by Democratic President Bill Clinton -- and support for it doesn't break down neatly along partisan lines -- the GOP has been seen as more opposed to lifting the ban.
DADT ruled unconstitutional by Federal Court
Fri, 2010-09-10 09:16
#1
No Yards
DADT ruled unconstitutional by Federal Court
Sun, 2010-09-12 00:55
#2
Wed, 2010-10-13 07:22
#3
A U.S. federal judge has issued a country-wide injunction stopping enforcement of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, ending the military's 17-year-old ban on openly gay troops.
U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips's landmark ruling Tuesday in Riverside, Calif., was widely cheered by gay rights organizations that credited her with getting accomplished what President Barack Obama and Washington politicians could not.
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/10/12/gay-troops-injunction.html#ixzz12Ek1dQsB
Sat, 2010-12-18 15:53
#4
bagkitty
No need for a new thread, plenty of room in here.
The American senate has finally voted to repeal DADT. The measure still requires Obama to sign off on it, and the schedule for actually implementing the repeal is not yet settled. Baby steps... but still a positive sign.
Sun, 2010-12-19 00:57
#5
The 65-31 victory was a much bigger margin than we originally expected. More Republicans voted in favor than originally expected.
At least Obama and the Democrats have finally passed something progressive for a change.
Sun, 2010-12-19 09:45
#6
So what exactly does this mean?
The DADT meant that you could be gay and serve in the US armed forces, you just had to keep it a secret. Which to me sounds like a stupid solution to a stupid problem. Basically the US just not wanting to deal with it.
So what happens if the DADT is rulled unconstitutional? Will the US go back to saying homosexuals cannot serve in the armed forces end of story? Somehow I don't think they will go the reverse and allow them to serve openly.
Sun, 2010-12-19 19:08
#7
I think you are right P4. There is talk about ensuring all gays and lesbians are purged from the army etc. Here are three comments from three American plebs:
You bleeding heart self-righteous commies all take the wrong side of every issue because your disloyal subversives .You despise the U.S.,yet live here and reap all the benefits like ungreatful spoiled bastard children.The sooner we purge people like you the better off we'll be.
Why do gays have to serve OPENLY in the military? If they don't say they are homosexual, they CAN serve without the slightest of repercussions. I think that they have this obsession with being in-your-face with their sexual proclivities!
@Stan, my whole problem with the repeal of DADT is not so much that gays serve, for i know that they will, and should be allowed to, just not openly. The military, after all, should NOT be about social experimentation, or engineering. In wartime, the military is about killing people and breaking things, and that's all.
Mon, 2010-12-20 00:33
#8
Malcolm
The last two comments are a little baffling.
The removal of DADT means that LGBTQTS will be able to serve openly in the US military. The new policy has the support of all but one of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (the exception being the Commandant of the United States Marine Corps - the most junior member of the Joint Chiefs).
Yes, there will be homophobic ranters like those quoted by Stargazer. There were in the Canadian Forces when the policy chjanged in the early 1990s. Yes, there will be a period of adjustment (including the expected 90 - 120 day period between the President's signature on the bill and the actual implementation).
But the matter is now decided. Our side has won - and the Senate still has the capacity to block any attempt to reverse this by legislative means over the next two years without having to depend on a Presidential veto.
Mon, 2010-12-20 09:36
#9
It's difficult to use Canada as an example of gays being allowed to serve openly compared to the US.
The I'm afraid a gay is going to look at me in the shower flock is pretty small compared to the religious God thinks it's wrong crew.
The US armed forces is still very religious and many cite homosexuality as an affont against God and immoral and will lead to the breakdown of family values and even the fabric of the universe blah blah. I've been to a few US services out of curiosity and to get out of work in my younger days and all I can say is wow. I remember them talking about the sexual abuse by Afghan men against young boys but you could totally read between the lines and hear the priest condemining all homosexuals and making subtle comments to the ones serving in the US.
I wasn't around for when Canada crossed over but it sounds like it went pretty well. Yes there were and still are issues, I think some members of this board even have some insight to it, but over all there wasn't a civil war. The US is going to have way more problems. All in all I'm glad gays will be allowed to serve in the US forces since they've been serving with them the last couple hundred years.
Mon, 2010-12-20 12:59
#10
bagkitty
I am still waiting for the commentators to start paying attention to the conflicts that are going to arise when LGBT service members attempt to claim (and, under DOMA, be denied) the same benefits for their dependants as are available to their straight peers. Unfortunately, the commentators are still busy wrapping themselves in both the flag and the blanket of self-congratulations. Hopefully, the discussion will move on soon.
Mon, 2010-12-20 17:31
#11
Obama will be signing the Bill on Wednesday.
Mon, 2010-12-20 19:54
#12
Malcolm
One good thing came out of the delay between the original court ruling and the eventual revoking of DADT. As part of its internal process, the Pentagon actually did some research into service members' attitudes. In every branch, there was widespread support for eliminating DADT.
Yes, there are troglodytes in the US military, but they aren't running the show. All but one of the Joint Chiefs are behind the change. There is widespread support at all levels. The troglodytes will not have the capacity to turn this around.
In every country where this has occured, people claimed that there would be hostility and even violence - yes, even in the Canadian Forces. It hasn't happened yet.
Wed, 2010-12-22 18:32
#13
Catchfire
Why Ending Don't Ask, Don't Tell Is Important, And What Remains To Be Done
I am one of those lefty queers who is both anti-war and desired the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Noxious as war is, it is also my view that allowing forms of discrimination to be written into the law is neither a gift ("Yay, I am radically free from compulsory marriage!") or a way to distance from the American war machine ("Yay! I'm not implicated in the American war machine, even though my consumer habits, my pension and the university that employs me depends on it!")[...]
DADT has moved to yesterday's Senate vote, for example, I have thought constantly about a straight male acquaintance who joined an elite branch of the armed forces, and was, at every stage of his training and deployment, forced to endure rituals of violence and humiliation that were not specifically homophobic. They included such useful military skills as spending a day doing his work with a filthy toilet seat around his neck, standing in formation in the middle of the night nude except for the women's underpants on his head (yes,what happened at Abu Ghraib happens all the time in the U.S. military), staying up all night cleaning a latrine with his toothbrush and then being ordered to use it in his mouth, and being repeatedly beaten up by other soldiers for imagined failures of deference.
What strikes me as a particularly graphic example for the need of a more embracing theoretical perspective is the failure to make a practical connection between what currently counts for an anti-violence politics on the queer left -- homophobic and sexist bullying among high school students -- to a realistic sense of the ways the military (but also marriage and the family) perpetuate and institutionalize violence. These issues are, in fact, inseparable, as a political history of school and of the the military are also inseparable. Each institution relies heavily on invisible systems of self-rule to maintain governance and subservience. In each case, self-rule is based on forms of brutality that could not possibly be legitimated by the state, but which serve as discipline by proxy.
So yes, sign that bill President Obama, so we can get started on the real work of ending violence.
Wed, 2010-12-22 19:53
#14
Do those who are being killed all over the planet by the US military give a flying fig what the soldiers do in the privacy of their bedrooms?
Wed, 2010-12-22 21:59
#15
No. They probably also don't give a flying fig whether Obama caved to the insurance companies on health care reform. What's your point?
Sun, 2011-01-02 12:04
#16
Do those who are being killed all over the planet by the US military give a flying fig what the soldiers do in the privacy of their bedrooms?
Actually they probably would.