Being the Change I Wish to See

Finally, the discriminatory policy that prevents gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and possibly transgendered Americans from serving our country openly in the military was repealed by the Senate today. The House of Representatives passed the repeal bill earlier this week.

Cloture was approved by a margin of 63 yea to 33 nay votes, and the bill immediately advanced. Republicans ended the debate period after a couple of hours (instead of the maximum 30 hours they could have used) and the Senate voted on the final bill. The vote was 65 yea to 31 nay, and DADT is now repealed by a margin of 14 more votes than were required (after the cloture vote succeeded, only 51 votes were needed for repeal).

The President is expected to sign the bill into law early this week.

This is a huge victory for President Obama, a victory that was difficult and for which he spent a large amount of political capital. The Democratic and Progressive base has been quite upset with President Obama lately, especially over his signature on extending all of the Bush tax cuts yesterday. It’s amazing that about 24 hours later he was able to win a big victory and keep one of his most important campaign promises: getting DADT repealed in 2010 using the legislative process.

If repeal had not happened in the Legislative Branch, federal courts, which have already begun ruling that this law is unconstitutional, would have had to take it all the way to the Supreme Court. I’m not sure what would have happened with that process. If Justice Elena Kagan recused herself from the case, repeal of the law would likely have failed because the final vote would have been 4-4, and in that case the 4th vote against repeal would have decided the issue. If Justice Kagan did not have to recuse herself, repeal would have passed. The final vote would have been 5-4 for repeal.

I’m extremely happy that repeal took place in the Legislature where the policy was codified in the first place. Now there is no doubt that repeal is final and that no one can accuse the court of legislating from the bench.

This is a great day for our LGBT military members, for all LGBT Americans, and for Americans as a whole. Civil rights and justice have been upheld by law instead of judicial enforcement of the U.S. Constitution. For once, public opinion was ahead of both the courts and the law on such an important civil rights issue. In so many cases in the past, it has taken the Supreme Court to grant Constitutionally guaranteed civil rights, but not this time.

This vote restored my faith that America can be great and we can do great things. I was truly beginning to believe we weren’t capable of greatness anymore.

We can bask in today’s victory, but we must return to work on LGBT civil rights on Monday. DOMA still has to be repealed, and equal marriage rights and work-place rights still do not belong to all LGBT Americans.

Technorati Tags: Civil Rights and Justice, DADT, DADT repealed, don't ask don't tell policy, gay lesbian bisexual transgender in the military, LGBT civil rights, U.S. military

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Update May 27, 2009: Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenback of the U.S. Air Force is being discharged under don’t ask don’t tell. He is a highly decorated combat pilot with 18 years of service. Somewhere around $25 million has been spent on training him for his position. Losing him because he is gay is the stupidest thing I can think of.

He is fighting his discharge, and there is hope because a court could rule that the military must prove his conduct is a disruption to good order and discipline within his unit. Another officer just won on appeal and will remain in the military even though she is now known to be a lesbian.
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Original post begins here:

The Don’t Ask Don’t Tell military policy on sexual orientation must end. Many other countries have openly gay and lesbian members serving and have experienced no problems with it.

We are about to lose 1st Lt. Dan Choi, a West Point graduate, Iraq veteran, an Arabic linguist and founding member of the gay and lesbian group of West Point graduates, Knights Out. We are about to lose 2nd Lt. Sandy Zhao after she came out to her chain of command in January 2009. She wrote to President Obama and he responded personally to her in favor of repealing DADT.

The following videos cover the subject much better than I can describe the story to you:

Lt. Choi is an Arabic linguist, not an Arab linguist. CNN needs to fix that.

If I recall correctly, a similar argument was used before women were allowed to serve unsegregated and in combat jobs in our military. Having women on the battlefield, it was argued, would damage unit cohesion and discipline. We know that isn’t true and women have served in combat positions for at least 2 decades now.

This is a useless and discriminatory law that needs to be repealed. I have to agree to a point with Rep. Joe Sestak that the repeal needs to be done by due process in Congress. He’s right that the past administration has shown us what ignoring the law can do to our country. The difference is the Bush administration did it for the wrong reasons. Continuing to uphold a clearly discriminatory law that violates equal protection under the law, the most basic premise of our legal system. It is more wrong and more damaging to us as a country than an executive order to extend equal protection for gays to serve in the military while the law is changed would be. The law here is clearly wrong.

Take Action

What we can do is write, email or call our Representatives in the House to sign on to this bill as co-sponsors. If they don’t wish to be co-sponsors, we must insist they support and vote for the bill. We need to do the same with our Senators. The more pressure we the constituents put on our elected officials, the more likely it will be that DADT will be repealed this year, and veterans such as Lt. Choi and Lt. Zhao can be reinstated along with the thousands of others who have been wrongfully discharged but still wish to serve.

We can also support Knights Out directly. They have a great website where you can donate, take action and help repeal DADT. You can also become an Ally of Knights Out. Click on the Join Knights Out link in the left sidebar and sign your name if you wish.

In the meantime, I will keep you posted on any progress made on DADT, and on Lts. Choi and Zhao. Lt. Choi plans to fight his dismissal and hopefully, because the wheels of military law move as slowly as the rest of government, the law may be changed before he has exhausted every avenue open to him.

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