In one of the great civil liberties victories of our age, President Barack Obama this morning signed the formal repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell — an obnoxious policy of discrimination put into effect under President Bill Clinton. At the time, many of us criticized Clinton for not having the courage to reject discrimination against gays and lesbians — even if we lost the fight on principle. Instead, we have had this insidious and hypocritical policy in place — resulting in the discharge or rejections of thousands of brave citizens. It is now relegated to the dustbin of history with the other discriminatory policies once embraced by our nation.
The battle, however, is not over. Under the DADT policy, servicemembers suspected of being gay were often harassed but could not file complaints. Now, they can. The question will be how the military enforces protections against harassment or hostile work conditions for gays and lesbians. The Obama Administration has two year to put such protections in place — a key challenge since the next Administration may not be as supportive of such rights.
Another challenge could come from the National Guard. Historically, the National Guard was the successor to the militias formed at the beginning of our Republic. They were created as state organizations. With the Vietnam War, the U.S. Army assumed greater control over the state units. Certainly when deployed, they are squarely subject to such policies. Some politicians, however, may try to reassert state authority in preserving DADT on the state level. The federal government has the stronger legal hand under current laws and precedent but it could force a reevaluation on the relative lines of authority between the states and federal government.
The implication for future litigation may be subtle. Notably, the Administration struggled to avoid making this repeal a recognition of constitutional protections for gays and lesbians. The Administration in court fought against claims that sexual orientation should be given the same protections as a category of discrimination as race, religion or even gender. Indeed, in court, the Administration argued to preserve the policy under the claim that gays and lesbians were a danger to unit cohesion.
In the repeal, the Administration largely focused on the sacrifice of these brave men and women — as well as rejecting the discipline and unit cohesion theory. It steadfastly avoided supporting claims that gays and lesbians are entitled to the high level of scrutiny afforded race or the intermediate scrutiny afforded gender.
The repeal will certainly help in the recognition of greater constitutional protections for gays and lesbians. The Supreme Court is a cautious and deliberative institution. It took small steps before accepting a higher level of scrutiny for gender. The repeal puts gays and lesbians on the same legal trajectory in greater recognition of their rights.
This is a wonderful day for civil libertarians. Despite our criticism of Obama for his government’s arguments in federal court, it is also a great victory of him and his legacy. More importantly, it is a great victory for members of Congress — including Republicans who stepped forward to support civil liberties.
Jonathan Turley
Source: LA Times
Oh. It is not only LG or LGBT.
LGBTTTQQ… may now be, according to some Pflag friends, simplified to genderqueer as a term of respectful endearment that includes every possible form of whatever gender is, including those exclusively heterosexual.
Genderqueer or intergender is easier to say than lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgendered/transsexual/two-spirited/queer/questioning, and that laundry list is hardly completely inclusive.
I was busy writing a comment based on one of my persistent hallucinations while this post happened. In my mind’s eye, I can envision a world of humans who are decently truthful about self, others, and all else.
I have long been asking and long been telling. Now, what I do may finally be permitted by law.
1944. The first day of kindergarten, Columbia School, Seattle, Washington. My mother had walked the three blocks from home with me. We entered the kindergarten room, the teacher, before talking briefly with my mom, suggested that I go to the far end of the room to play with the toys there. I did.
The teacher glanced toward me, asked my mom to briefly be excused, and hurried over to me, “No, Brian, those toys are for the girls.”
as odious as Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was, I’m not sure there was much more that Clinton could have done at that time. There were more that a few powerful Democrats(Nunn for one) that were opposed to allowing gay folks to serve openly not to mention two of the most popular men in the Country at that time, Powell and Schwarzkopf were quite vocal in opposition.
Elaine M.: I heard the most astonishing thing while my girlfriend was watching CNN yesterday morning coinciding with your post today and yesterdays post regarding Net Neutrality. I immediately fired off an email to CNN. While I’m quite adept at snark I’m a lousy writer but hopefully I got my point across not that it would make any difference. I’ll post the letter on the ABA thread so as not to hijack this one.
TS wrote:
“Today isn’t the day for growsing and moaning about the details…”
______________
I disagree, especially given Mr. Obama’s disingenuousness, because “the devil is always in the details” with anything he says or pledges.
Today isn’t the day for growsing and moaning about the details. The President in his speech gave due recognition to the many people involved down the years to bring this repeal act to his desk. Today we celebrate that hard work.
I’ve no time for complaints about the nature and purpose of military service; as long as the military exists it should not impose unnecessarily harsh and unjust conditions on those who volunteer (or indeed, may at some point be drafted) to serve.
I discussed the Clinton legacy on the earlier thread, but I think I was too harsh. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was preferable to what was threatened by opponents of open service in Congress at a time when the Pentagon was implacably opposed to letting homosexuals serve openly. It was a step forward from the complete ban that had been imposed by Truman. Although Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell has long been regarded as unjust by civil rights proponents, this was not the view of the general public until comparatively recently. The balance has tipped.
To clarify: HAL9000’s orders had nothing to do with GLBT issues. The point Dr. Clarke was making had to do with giving a computer (or person) orders with an internal conflict. Conflicting orders result in bad things happening.
It was about time this despicable law was repealed. Lt. Choi confronted the hypocrisy head on when he went public with the conflict between the Code of Honor at West Point and the law of the land. He was told not to lie, but then told to lie. According to author Arthur C. Clarke, those kinds of conflicting orders was the reason the computer “HAL9000” went mad in his story, “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
For the occasion of the DADT repeal, I wrote a diary on Daily Kos last night about military homophobia and the ultimate consequence of this kind of prejudice. Some may find the story of Major General Sir Hector MacDonald interesting, so here is the link.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/12/21/930794/-Hector-the-Hero:-a-cautionary-tale-about-military-homophobia
Had a slight discussion about this person the other day when The DADT thread was posted,but have you noticed the silence about this persons involvement in the media while the debate was going on?
“put into effect under President Bill Clinton.”
Jill,
“It’s one reason why I call Obama the headline president.”
ALL Presidents are now headline Presidents. There are so many important issues that the print press and other media inform us of for a day or two–and then those stories go off the radar for the most part. Instead, the “news” media focus a lot of attention on people like Sarah Palin (and her Tweets), Christine O’Donnell, etc., celebrities, and other subjects not of major significance. It’s a lot less costly for the news media corporations to have talking heads discuss their opinions about things with which they have little or no firsthand experience than it is to send correspondents out into the world to do real investigative journalism. Look how the press failed us in the run-up to the Iraq war. Some in the press even seemed like cheerleaders. Bush and Cheney got away with murder–literally. It seems that some things have not changed in the past two years–even though many of us hoped they would.
*****
From Outside the Beltway (12/20/2010)
Afghanistan Still America’s Forgotten War
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/afghanistan-still-americas-forgotten-war/
Excerpt:
It’s been noted here in the past how little attention the nine year-old war in Afghanistan has received. It was barely an issue in the election campaign, for example, and only seems to garner front page attention when something controversial happens, like the dustup earlier this year over the remarks by General Stanley McChrystal, or the revelations that came out from Wikileaks shortly thereafter. According to a new study, though, the extent to which what is now the second longest war in American history is not part of the public consciousness probably has a lot to do with the fact that it receives almost no coverage from the American media:
The grueling war there, where a day rarely goes by without an allied casualty, is like a faint heartbeat, accounting for just 4 percent of the nation’s news coverage in major outlets through early December, according to a study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, an arm of the Pew Research Center.
That is down slightly from last year, when the war accounted for 5 percent.
“It’s never passed the threshold to be a big story week in, week out for Americans,” said Mark Jurkowitz, the associate director of the project.
One senior foreign correspondent for television, when told of the 4 percent coverage figure, said he was impressed — given the relatively small contingent of foreign journalists in Afghanistan.
“There are like seven of us there,” remarked the correspondent, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because he did not want to call into question his network’s commitment to the war. Those who are there have done courageous work, exposing corruption and documenting military progress in rooting out insurgents.
Jill that was a very good, spot-on comment regarding the realities surrounding Mr. ‘Janus’ (as in two-faced) Obama.
____
Even as the self-described ‘resident homophobe’ herein, this is the only just decision that any decent, fair-minded human could make to alleviate the injustices displayed to numerous American citizens who deserve the same treatment as everyone else.
What Jill said.
Jill,
Amen!
jill
“I wish our society would quit worshiping at the alter of war. It is an ugly, cruel, murdering business. So yes, no one should be deprived of participation in any work because of sexual orientation. But I refuse to call this a glorious success for justice. That success will only come when everyone, gay and straight is brought home from these unjust wars of empire, given the treatment they need to recover from that experience, and we work together, gay, straight and transgender on forging a good society based on peace and justice.”
========
Well said, and true (all of it), but especially the above.
Long overdue.
Let’s hope the government’s veto power over marriages is next to be buried.
This bill isn’t so much the triumph of civil rights as a cynical action to appeal to Democratic moneyed donors from the gay and lesbian community. In a similar headline, “Obama administration passes banking reform”, “Obama administration passes health care reform” etc. the devil is in the details but the headline is what all we get to hear. The implementation of this bill belongs to the approval of Obama, Gates and Mullen for example. We won’t hear much about the actual implementation, just as we don’t hear how “banking reform” is now in the hands of financial industry lobbyists, just as was planned from the beginning. It’s one reason why I call Obama the headline president. “I will close Gitmo in one year”, (by which I mean I will indefinitely detain people there while stating that I am closing Gitmo). The headline sticks in people’s minds. The reality of the harm being done remains in tact.
Of course gay women and men should be able to openly serve in the military. They have been serving for years. But there is something profoundly sad in calling the ability to participate in the killing of others a success for civil rights. We are engaged in wars of empire. Just yesterday it was revealed that we will be sending more ground troops to Pakistan. What a great idea! The effects of killing other people, watching your own people being killed or wounded is profoundly destructive of the human spirit. It ruins one life after another. Further, many of the people who enlist, gay and straight do so from economic desperation.
I wish our society would quit worshiping at the alter of war. It is an ugly, cruel, murdering business. So yes, no one should be deprived of participation in any work because of sexual orientation. But I refuse to call this a glorious success for justice. That success will only come when everyone, gay and straight is brought home from these unjust wars of empire, given the treatment they need to recover from that experience, and we work together, gay, straight and transgender on forging a good society based on peace and justice.
If they drag their feet during “implementation” while telling people not to come out, nothing has changed. The courts will get them to speed it up, which is what Sec. Gates said he did not want.
Year = Smokescreen = Find Ways To Wiggle Out = Continued Injustice.
Yes, to what lottakatz and Michael-in-Paris said.
Lottakatz is correct that the implementation will take some time and using Pentagon clocks and calendars, that could be awhile. But the bill was long overdue and the policy should never have been implemented in the first place.
There really is a Santa Clause…
😉
It is long overdue and greatly welcomed. It’s not over yet though. Gays and lesbians can’t come out yet.
Now an implementing phase goes into effect and that starts with a commission/study of how to implement. Discharges under DADT may be at an end but ‘openly serving’ could take another year or more.