Obama: Repeal of 'don't ask' possible

[babylonsister]

Mods, this has nothing to do with Clinton/primaries, so I hope the placement in GD is okay.

Obama: Repeal of 'don't ask' possible

By NEDRA PICKLER


WASHINGTON (AP) -- Barack Obama says if elected president he will not require that his Joint Chiefs of Staff be opposed to the "don't ask, don't tell" policy that prevents gays from serving openly in the military.

The Democratic presidential front-runner favors repealing the policy, which was instituted during the Clinton administration. He said his priority for the Joint Chiefs will be that they make decisions to strengthen the military and keep the country safe, not their position on the policy.

"I would never make this a litmus test for the Joint Chiefs of Staff," Obama said in an interview with The Advocate, a gay newsmagazine.

"But I think there's increasing recognition within the Armed Forces that this is a counterproductive strategy," he said. "We're spending large sums of money to kick highly qualified gays or lesbians out of our military, some of whom possess specialties like Arab-language capabilities that we desperately need. That doesn't make us more safe."

The Advocate provided The Associated Press with excerpts of the interview, to be posted on its Web site Friday.

more...

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/O/OBAMA_GAY_RIGHTS?SITE=CONGRA&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

[patrice]

1. Does "to strengthen the military and keep the country safe" mean people will be evaluated on their

Skills, not their Gender?

[babylonsister]

2. To me it means that sexual preferences won't enter into

whether a person is able to serve. Seems so simple to me. DADT should never have been enacted.

[patrice]

13. Agreed!

:hi:

[Bandit]

3. Don't ask don't tell was a huge step forward

I hope by repeal they mean no ban at all on sexual preference, and not back to complete ban as it was before Clinton. Clinton caught a lot of heat for removing that ban..

[SoonerPride]

4. It was not a huge step forward. It was legalized, mandated discrimination.

Jim Crow was better than slavery.

Yiour position is indefensible.

Right is right and DADT is not right.

[Winterblues]

5. Just what was the policy before Don't Ask?

I also think it was a major step forward and Clinton caught a lot of flak from the right wing echo chamber over it. They said he used all his Political Capital on his defense of gays and badgered him for quite some time..

[TheWraith]

17. DADT *increased* the rate of discharge for gays in the military.

It did not help. It did the opposite.

[aikoaiko]

6. It was a step forward because it established that gay men and women could serve

Once that was established through policy and record, serving openly was impossible to deny for much longer.

It was a great strategic move by Clinton, but it cost the party/America dearly in 1994 and Republican take over of Congress.

[Bake]

7. I didn't see him saying they could serve openly.

So this may well be another McClurkin moment for O.

Bake

[xchrom]

8. yes -- it was of his saying there would be no litmus test

for the joint chiefs on the issue.

never mind that there are already lgbt folk serving and serving with distinction --

[babylonsister]

9. Just because that's what you'd like to pin on Obama

doesn't make it so. Cripes, he extends a hand and you spit at it. Good luck with that.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x5445694

[Bake]

11. If he's going to eliminate DADT, it's useless without taking the next logical step

Namely, allowing GLBTs to serve OPENLY. I'm asking, did he do that? If he did, great; I applaud him. If he didn't, then logically it's a step backwards to the status quo pre-DADT.

Bake

[TheWraith]

14. What do you think eliminating DADT IS?

His entire point was that we're wasting money and people by kicking gays and lesbians out of the military? Only somebody who has a hate-on for Obama can read into that that he wants to completely ban gays and lesbians from serving.

[Winterblues]

22. A complete ban on gays from serving was the policy until DADT

After DADT it was understood that the Military would no longer consider the issue unless a person made it an issue. It was a leap forward from the bad old days of absolutely under no conditions could a gay serve...

[Orsino]

10. Come on, man. Either sponsor some legislation or stop teasing us.

We don't need hints. We need action to halt the discrimination.

[TheWraith]

15. Legislation wouldn't make it. The way to do it is through the presidency.

The policy can be changed by a legal decision from the DOD's General Counsel. That office is a presidential appointment.

[kenny blankenship]

12. Some on this thread are tragically misinformed: DADT increased the rates of discharges for gays

In 1994, 617 servicemembers were discharged for being gay. By 2001, that number had risen to over 1,200 a year. That is a fact. DADT did NOT make it OK for you to be homosexual while in military service, on the contrary it allowed the military to witchhunt for gays in the ranks and dismiss them just as before - in fact the rules governing "self-incrimination" are if anything worse for gays than before DADT was passed. First it should be noted that DADT was the first and remains the only federal law that makes being gay grounds for job discrimination. So now it's legal precedent--thanks Bill, you sack of shit! DADT enshrines in Federal Law the desired goal of removal of all gay people from the military: thus complaints about how that goal is reached are reduced to tertiary quibbling. Second, under DADT "telling" which is a violation and grounds for dishonorable discharge may be (and is) constituted by "telling" people who aren't military themselves, and telling them in non-military situations. "Telling" rarely actually means telling your superior officer "By the way, I am a big homo. Gay rights 4ever!" --that is what DADT apologists usually believe is meant by the provision "Don't Tell". Don't advocate for gay rights or confess your orientation and all will be well, they suppose. Not at all! Telling under DADT means you can't tell your parents or siblings; you can't tell your priest/rabbi/chaplain/minister; you can't tell your shrink or doctor; you can't tell your friend from highschool or from back in your old hometown; you can't tell the lovely little thing perched on the barstool next to you. If any of those confidantes ever mention your name and it somehow gets back to base, you have "TOLD" and are then subject to dishonorable discharge. You were never going to tell your Sgt. of course, nor any officer; but in fact you can't tell a living soul. Telling your Priest or any other person that you are gay incidentally is the same thing as "homosexual conduct" from the point of view of the Pentagon and if they find out about it you are history. All it takes for you to become the focus therefore, of surveillance and an official investigation (or witchhunt as these things are properly called) is for someone who doesn't like you to casually mention to an officer, "So and so told me in so many words that he's gay". That's all it takes under DADT for the ball to start rolling on your court martial. After that they can ask, ask, ask. But first they will follow you and take pictures. Equally arbitrary and inescapable is the commanding officer who asks a pattern of oblique, seemingly innocuous questions about how you spend your off-duty time, or about who's been calling you. Answer "oh that was my friend on the phone just now" one too many times, or "I went to the beach with my friend last weekend-again", and the witchhunt is on-or not-depending solely on that officer's discretion and their attitude about gays. You didn't "tell" them you were gay; but you told them all they needed to officially suspect you of "homosexual conduct". Now they're on to you. Your only way out is to preemptively lie, lie, lie to any question touching on your identity and life. You will have to lie like a philandering President, fabricating false details to these indirect questions, lying constantly and consistently for years, admitting the truth only when caught.

What an appropriate policy for a Clinton!

The only thing that has tempered the onslaught against gay service members is the cannon fodder demands of the War of Terror, beginning in 2002. Even with a war on and facing desperate manpower shortages the military is still expelling people for being gay at a rate higher than before the DADT policy took effect.

DADT is a terrible, terrible policy, and it was a dire betrayal of people in uniform as well as the gay community who gave Bill Clinton their votes. He took our votes and threw us under the bus. Still though, I see there are people dumb enough to let Bill Clinton continue to stab them in the ass.

[babylonsister]

20. Thanks for this post, kenny. A bit of knowledge... nt

[yodermon]

16. He also wants DOMA repealed.

Hillary likes it because it was a triangulation against the federal marriage amendment.
Take your pick.

[apocalypsehow]

18. The convolutions the law is twisted into in the service of bigotry continues to astonish.

DADT and DOMA are nothing more than that - legalized bigotry. The sooner both are purged from our law books, the better.

[hisownpetard]

19. Gobama!

[coriolis]

21. He won't require them to oppose DADT? In what nutty world is that supportive

of gay rights?
:eyes: :puke: