Choi Asked. Reid Tweeted.

This Tweet image via JMG.

At first I thought it was merely touching, especially given the news earlier this week that Choi was in the hospital. And then I thought it was telling. That Reid would send a message specifically to Dan today speaks volumes to the impact the Lieutenant had on the Senate Majority Leader and the ultimate outcome of today's vote.

I don't know if Reid gave a shout out like this to anyone else prior to the vote today. I would rather doubt it. It would seem a man with the passion for justice and the willingness to demand that a wrong be righted, spare me your excuses, made a bigger difference than the polite lobbyists and party loyalists.

In the end, Reid remembered his personal promise to Choi. A promise that Choi refused to let him forget.

Can GOProud Do Something Meaningful in the DADT Debacle?

Like lobby and call on it's members to call Sen. Scott Brown's office to urge his vote for the stand alone DADT repeal? Since he didn't actually, you know, vote FOR DADT repeal like he -- and GOProud -- said he would.

Or will they continue to just take useless potshots meant to do nothing more than stick a finger in the eye of gay progressives?

GOPricks

The boys at GOProud have endorsed the Senate Republican strategy of blocking action on anything other than the Bush tax cuts -- including repeal of DADT.

Do we really need another "gay" organization that puts political party interests ahead of our equal rights? The left has HRC, the right now has GOProud.

Of course, the real mission of GOProud isn't to advance gay rights. And perhaps not even to advance conservative causes. I think their real mission is to piss off gay liberals.

What Happens When You Procrastinate?

Important things don't get done:

"But senior Democratic aides in the Senate concede a vote this year to end [DADT] is growing highly unlikely because it is part of a massive defense policy bill that requires weeks of debate. With three weeks left before Christmas, senators are expected to consider tax cuts, a government spending plan and possibly a nuclear disarmament treaty with Russia, leaving little time for other legislation. The aides asked their names be withheld because they were not authorized to speak on the record."

Republican obstructionism doesn't help either. Nor does John McCain's flip flopping.

The DADT Debacle

I suppose I should be most pissed off at Sen. John McCain, but I take some comfort from the fact that he will be remembered by history for his craven bigotry.

But it's our "friends" who deserve the most of our ire, from Sen. Harry Reid for sabotaging the earlier effort to repeal DADT, to gay rights groups splitting over DADT repeal, to Barack Obama for never intending to do anything to advance gay equality, despite his promises, posturing and posing with gay advocates in the East Room.

This passage, from "The Promise," by Jonathan Alter, makes it clear that President Fierce Advocate never intended to do anything. At an transition meeting before the inauguration, Alter tells how Rahm Emanuel laid out the administrations priorities and instructed that there were to be "no distractions:"

"The 'no distractions' theme would be critical to shaping 2009. It meant that divisive issues requiring the approval of Congress like...repealing the ban on gays in the military would all be set aside temporarily while Democrats focused on Obama's first tier agenda." (Page 79)

Got that LGBT folk? We're a "distraction," and on the back burner. Gay equality? Sorry, the prez has more important things to do. He can't be bothered.

And now, with more Republicans in Congress, Obama will never get to this "second tier" or "third tier" or wherever we fall in importance on Obama's priority list.

I'm looking forward to the 2012 Democratic primaries.

Former Rep. Duncan Hunter on Don't Ask Don't Tell

Via WaPo. It's worth the click.

Seriously, framing DADT repeal as a veteran's issue makes great sense. America shouldn't reward our veterans of the Iraq or Afghanistan wars by firing them.

Log Cabin Republicans 1; Obama, 0 in DADT Repeal

In this topsy-turvey political season, things just got a little topsy-turveyer. The Log Cabin Republicans have succesffuly (for now) ended DADT while the Obama Fierce Advocate Administration will apparently fight that decision.

When justice rolls down like waters Obama wants to build a dam.

Find Your Military Match (in your local gay paper)

I captured this screen shot of today's DC Agenda (DC's LGBT weekly paper) when I saw the ad on the left. The article is a Kevin Naff editorial on DADT. The Ad says "find your military match today" and shows a picture of a man in uniform in an intimate pose with a woman.

There's something either terribly wrong with this picture or our service members are a lot more progressive (and sexually adventurous) than anyone gives them credit for.

Leonard Matlovich

Via Good As You, vintage footage of Walter Cronkite interviewing gay pioneer Leonard Matlovich. G.A.Y has more vintage coverage of earlier attempts to end the ban on the rights of gays to serve in the military.

Dan Choi Returns to Duty

He refused to shut up, despite DADT. And he's now back with his unit, where he should be.

A gay American stood up for his right to be treated just as every other American. The establishment -- including the gay establishment -- all but told him to stop being patient and wait. But he refused.

He didn't ask. He told.

I am proud of Dan Choi.

If Coakley Loses

We can kiss any chance of DADT repeal this year goodbye. Perhaps for the rest of Obama's first term. Democrats will be too shell-shocked to take a chance on something as potentially so controversial. That may be the case even if Coakley manages to pull it off.

HRC and SLDN

UPDATE: The demise of the WashBlade today (Monday, Nov. 16) means the Blade link doesn't work.

Good news -- Barney Frank says DADT may be repealed in 2010, according to an article in the Washington Blade.

But if you wonder why much of our agenda has languished in Congress over the past decade, two quotes shed light on our time spent wondering in the wilderness.

On the question of the timing of DADT repeal, first we have HRC:

"Asked about Frank’s prediction for the repeal strategy, Allison Herwitt, legislative director for the Human Rights Campaign, said her organization 'always takes its cues from its congressional allies.'"

Check. We wait for "cues" from the folks who are supposed to represent us about when they will act to end injustice against us. Got it.

Now, let's throw it over to Kevin Nix, spokesperson for the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network:

"Nix also said SLDN is urging President Obama to include repeal as part of his defense budget request, which is expected to be delivered to Congress early next year."

Wait. What? SLDN is "urging" action by the government on our behalf? Actually "urging?" Not waiting for "cues" before asking on bended knee to stop injustice against us? You mean they're not letting others tell us "When we say so, and not before that?"

How impatient of them! Hopefully, someday they will cease being political novices and fall in line with the establishment. Then they will stop rocking the boat and making our "Congressional allies" queasy from having to actually follow through on the promises they made to us when they took our money and our votes.

Meanwhile, let's sit here on our hands and hope the "cues" will come soon.

A Kinder, Gentler DADT

Is this progress?

Change we can believe in?

A Tale of Two Obamas

David Link sees two Obamas: One who bodly addresses the thorny problems of the Middle East and one who shirks from (surely less) thorny gay issues.

Obama Throws the Gays a Bone, Part II

Taking a break from writing fiction, Alan Scott writes me:

"Gay rights are a bitter pill for most people to swallow, so we have to take baby steps to turn negative public opinion to our side. I know that we are pinning a lot of hopes on Obama but sweeping changes aren't going to happen overnight. Baby steps, although frustratingly slow, are how we have to gain our freedoms. :)"

There is some doubt that this was even a step, or if it was, it was a step in place. John Arovosis claims Federal agencies already had the ability to offer these benefits. And the claim that Obama couldn't offer health benefits because of DOMA is at the least debatable because DOMA defines marriage -- not domestic partnership. And the benefits offered in the presidential memo go to domestic partners, not same sex spouses.

It may make some political sense to cheer Obama for this "step." I admit it was striking to see Frank Kameny at the President's shoulder in the Oval Office.

But my fear is that this was a cynical ploy on the part of the White House to smooth over relations with the gay community. In fact, that's what the New York Times reported:

"But administration officials said the timing of the announcement was intended to help contain the growing furor among gay rights groups..."

There is the growing sense that Obama's actions are the exact opposite of his words. He claims to be a "Fierce Advocate" for gay rights, but as the Washington Post notes today:

"Obama's memorandum, designed to be both incremental and pragmatic, typifies the cautious way he has approached gay issues since taking office five months ago."

Obama claims to find DOMA "abhorrent" yet allows his DOJ to advance some of the most abhorrent notions about gay people possible to defend it. Much has been made of the brief's comparison to incest, but to me the most offensive is the claim that if gay people want to marry, they can -- they just have to marry someone of the opposite sex! See, no inequality! To me, that denies our existence and our humanity -- it stands contrary to the fact that gay people require someone of the same sex to meet their physical and emotional human needs, just as straight people require someone of the opposite sex for fulfillment. It's a view that is rooted in pre-nineteenth century scholarship about homosexuality.

Finally, you say that "sweeping changes aren't going to happen overnight." But in a sense, they are -- the recent successes for same sex marriage at the state level augur for some type of sea change. But let's leave the more vexing question of marriage aside for a moment.

As Sean Bugg has been hammering home, 70 percent of Americans support allowing gays to serve openly in America's armed forces. Obama claims he will remove DADT but has taken no steps in that direction, despite the fact that a vast majority of Americans would support him on it. Even the pragmatic "incremental steps" mentioned early are absent here -- the Pentagon says there has been no talks about changing the policy and apparently there hasn't even been staff level discussions about it between the White House and Senate leadership. Apparently Obama and Sen. Harry Reid are staring at each other from opposite ends of Pennsylvania Avenue pointing at each other saying "you do it!"

"Fierce Advocate." Hrmph.

I'm glad every day that John McCain is not in the White House. But until I see action indicating otherwise, President Fierce Advocate is a dud on gay rights.

Obama Throws the Gays a Bone

Obama is extending Federal benefits to partners of federal employees.

The gays were just thrown a bone.

I don't mean to sound ungrateful. Yes, it's progress. It's a step. But it's a baby step. Obama just had the Feds do what many large corporations did in the 1990s.

It doesn't make up for the incendiary language of the DOJ brief; it doesn't end the sweeping inequality that gays live under because of DADT and DOMA. If the gays are impatient it's because we were promised "change" and taking incremental baby steps as a means to placate our demands for full equality is also something that harkens back to the 1990s. Been there, done that, Mr. Fierce Advocate. It's not change. It's more of the same.

Understand this -- our relationships are trashed by federal law and demonized by the current DOJ. In fact, that brief denies the core of who we are -- a people who's emotional and physical needs are best met by a partner of the same sex. Obama's DOJ denies that by arguing that if we want equal marriage rights all we have to do is marry someone of the opposite sex. Mr. Obama -- the Federal government recognizes your humanity and need to marry the person of your choice. Why are we denied the same? The law makes us unequal Americans and you have done nothing to change that and this latest move does not change that.

America has higher ideals than this, Mr. President. But we lag behind many other nations who recognize their gay citizens' humanity and recognize their equal right to marry and serve in the military. I would have more rights in the Queen's England than I do now in Thomas Jefferson's America.

We can do better than this. You can do better than this.

I am glad that the community is in an uproar. As Americans, we will not put up with being treated as second-class citizens.

A Gay Soldier's Husband

Via Jimbo.

What it's like to be a "legal stranger" to the most important person in your life.

Supreme Court Thows Out DADT Challenge

Apparently, granting a request of the Obama Administration, which argued: "don't ask, don't tell" is "rationally related to the government's legitimate interest in military discipline and cohesion."

Hmm.

Must be part of the plan.

HRC, Obama and the Gays

I think John Aravosis has a compelling interpretation of the HRC/Obama "agenda setting" flap, particularly this:

"Many of us have been worried that the Obama administration might be trying to Sista Souljah the gays (i.e., distance themselves from the gays to show just how independent, how "new Democrat," they really are). The irony is that the embattled lead gay groups, in order to survive in an increasingly angry post-Prop-8, and increasingly expectant post-MA-NH-VT-IA-ME-CT, world, may end up having to Sista Souljah Obama in order to regain credibility in the eyes of their own members. And if that happens, I can't name a single Democrat (or Republican for that matter) in recent memory who's been on the receiving end of our ire and walked away unscathed."

As President Obama has to be careful not to be too far in front of public opinion. But he also must not get trampled in its wake.

Did HRC Throw Gay Service Members Under the Bus?

Sean Bugg provides info and links to the breaking news that HRC made a "deal" with the White House to put off repealing DADT in favor of ENDA and Hate Crimes legislation.