Obama deserves more time on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
A lot of gay Americans are upset with President Obama for delaying action to end the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy that forces more than 600 service members a year out of the U.S. military. They are protesting and criticizing the president’s inaction, and they are right to protest and to criticize. Protest and criticism are absolutely necessary to produce change from a political system that resists change.
Public opinion is clearly turning as well. Fairness and equality are deeply held American values that largely transcend partisan differences, and the American people on both the right and left increasingly recognize that DADT violates those values. Advocates are building support in both Congress and the military to change the policy, and that work must continue.
But let me say a difficult thing: Obama is right too. As president, he is trying to craft a wise approach to the conundrum of Afghanistan, and any policy that is less than everything the military has requested is going to require political capital to sustain. This is a potentially life-or-death issue for thousands of U.S. service members, some of them inevitably gay. U.S. fatalities in Afghanistan are already on track to double the previously highest year, and could very conceivably double once again next year.
Obama is also trying to pass health-insurance reform that will extend coverage to 40 or 50 million Americans without it. By one count, more than 40,000 Americans die each year because they lack full access to health care. Many of them are no doubt gay. In fact, given the fact that gay spouses are often precluded from employer-provided insurance, gay Americans are probably overrepresented in that population. Changing that system is critically important.
So no, good people such as Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach, Lt. Daniel Choi and Lt. Sandy Tsao should not be forced to forfeit their careers for an outdated bigotry. They shouldn’t have to wait for justice. In his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. reminded the world that demands to correct inequality and injustice are always treated as “untimely” by those who do not feel their sting.
“Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was ‘well timed’ in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation,” King wrote. “For years now I have heard the word “Wait!” It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This “Wait” has almost always meant “Never.” We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.”
DADT is wrong and it ought to be changed. It is time. Beyond its impact on individuals, it is wrong as a symbol, as one of the last governmentally mandated examples of discrimination against gay Americans.
But the sad truth is that in this complicated world, other things are even more wrong, and even more in need of immediate change.
That doesn’t mean we should back off. More pressure is necessary, and I suspect Obama wants that pressure. Furthermore, if the president hasn’t moved decisively to keep his promises on the issue in the next two years, the gay rights movement and all of us who support it will have every right to feel not just disappointed but betrayed and angry.
But at this moment and under these circumstances, 10 months into this presidency, frustration that feeds a renewed sense of purpose is a wiser response.
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204 comments Add your comment
I Report (-: You Whine )-: O Stands For Zero
October 14th, 2009
9:08 am
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, take me now, Lord.
The U.S. has long served as the world’s “indispensable nation” and the dollar’s primary role in the global economy has likewise seemed to testify to American exceptionalism. But the passivity in Washington toward our dismal fiscal future, and its inevitable toll on U.S. economic influence, suggests that American global leadership is no longer a priority and that America’s money cannot be trusted.
If money is a moral contract between government and its citizens, we are being violated. The rest of the world, meanwhile, simply wants to avoid being duped.-WSJ
Dereliction of duty, mmm, mmmm, mmmmm!
(DADT and health “care”, fiddling while Paris burns.)
ew
gttim
October 14th, 2009
9:11 am
He can stop enforcement with the stroke of the pen, until congress works it out. This has been done for countless other rules. As you said, good people shouldn’t have to wait for what is right.
TnGelding
October 14th, 2009
9:13 am
I Report (-: You Whine )-: O Stands For Zero
October 14th, 2009
9:08 am
You’re burning your credibility. The WSJ is simply wrong. We’re in the best fiscal hands available in the USA. The deficits are only temporary and Clinton economics will again surface to produce balanced budgets and prosperity for all. You’d think Wall Street would give the WSJ a clue.
Peadawg
October 14th, 2009
9:13 am
This was one of his promises during his campaign…to help with gay rights. ‘Don’t ask Don’t tell’ is stupid anyways. Like gttim said, “He can stop enforcement with the stroke of the pen”. This is just another failed promise…dang that list has gotten big!!!
jt
October 14th, 2009
9:22 am
If Ben Bernake or Hank Paulson asked for it,
bipp,
done.
I Report (-: You Whine )-: O Stands For Zero
October 14th, 2009
9:23 am
Hahahaha, peadawg believes what Obozo, mmm, mmmm, mmmmm, promised, hahaha, oh, that’s good.
~~~~~
TN- Yeah, I’m sure a socialist like yourself is quite pleased with the outcome of Obozo’s economic policies.
Probably makes you excited to see the US collapse, don’t it?
mike's pal
October 14th, 2009
9:23 am
i have always wondered about similar statements to “don’t axe. don’t tell.”
are the “the teller’s the feller” and “the squealer’s the dealer” colloquialisms for “don’t axe. don’t tell”?
Davo
October 14th, 2009
9:24 am
It’s win-win for Obama and his war machine…make the leftists happy at home by making cannon fodder out of them in Afghanistan.
Change. Ya, right.
USinUK
October 14th, 2009
9:25 am
sorry, Jay … but Obama needs to step up to the plate on this matter. DADT has been an injustice perpetrated on loyal Americans who are putting their lives on the line everyday – they shouldn’t be forced to wait until health care is solved.
(oh, and Sam Nunn, you SUCK!)
TnGelding
October 14th, 2009
9:26 am
I agree with your last sentence (except it’s been not quite 9 months), but we don’t need health insurance reform. We need health care reform. More people die because they do have insurance than die because they don’t. Care is available to those without insurance.
Casualties in Afghanistan will not double next year unless more troops are put in harm’s way, and I don’t think they should be or will be.
DADT don’t make sense, and never did. But it’s a tricky problem and one that needs a well thought out solution, as you stated.
stands for decibels
October 14th, 2009
9:26 am
What’s that, Jay? The President should assess priorities intelligently and get done what he can in as timely a manner as is practical and in the nation’s best interests?
That’s crazy talk.
jt
October 14th, 2009
9:27 am
TnGelding-
“We’re in the best fiscal hands available in the USA. ”
Thanks for the humor on a rainy morning. Those fiscal hands ARE everywhere though.
TnGelding
October 14th, 2009
9:27 am
Davo
October 14th, 2009
9:24 am
You’re pitiful. Like we haven’t been swimming in red ink and blood for 8 years?
TnGelding
October 14th, 2009
9:28 am
jt
October 14th, 2009
9:27 am
We’ll be able to see who is right if we live long enough.
Kayaker 71
October 14th, 2009
9:30 am
“Not just disappointed but sad and angry”. Bookman, your view is supported by varying percentages of the population, mostly divided about half and half on their outlook, depending on the section of the country that you are polling and how the questions were asked. About the same number that voted for Bozo in the last election. Hardly a mandate on gay rights and lifestyle. Many of us who are in that other 50% are called homophobes and other tricky names that some spin doctor has conjured up to show us how stupid we are for not embracing a lifestyle that we disagree with. Bottom line…. nearly half of Americans disagree with you and they all vote. Bozo knows this. And you wonder why he hasn’t acted on this issue?
david wayne osedach
October 14th, 2009
9:31 am
Obama made promises to the gays before he was elected. Now – he should keep them!
Bosch
October 14th, 2009
9:32 am
WHAT BLOG GOD? WHAT?
Seriously Blog God, really?
TnGelding
October 14th, 2009
9:33 am
I Report (-: You Whine )-: O Stands For Zero
October 14th, 2009
9:23 am
Collapse? Surely you jest. We’ll be as strong as we’ve ever been in 7 years. There might not be as large a percentage of our citizens in the workforce, tho, and that could be a good thing; taking care of things that really matter instead of acquiring unneeded consumer goods.
RW-(the original)
October 14th, 2009
9:33 am
Or as Obama would tell them. shut up and get dressed.
The uproar began this weekend when NBC’s John Harwood, after reporting on a gay rights march in Washington, relayed a dismissive quote from an anonymous administration official.
“And for a sign of how seriously the White House does or doesn’t take this opposition one adviser told me today those bloggers need to take off their pajamas, get dressed and realize that governing a closely divided country is complicated and difficult,” Harwood said.
Bosch
October 14th, 2009
9:33 am
I give up Blog God. You win.
Normal
October 14th, 2009
9:36 am
Jay, this time I completely disagree with you. DADT could and should be stopped tomorrow with just a word From President Obama and he could and should restore all Gay Military Personnel who wanted to, back to active service with no loss of pay or paygrade. That alone would assuage many, I am sure. Besides, he said he would be a fierce advocate on DADT and I have witnessed nothing “fierce” yet.
…And the “only wise approach to the conundrum of Afghanistan, and any policy that is less than everything the military has requested is going to require political capital to sustain”, can be solved simply by the wise choice of “to bring them home.” And I believe this will be at no political cost and much political gain.
There you go…two problems solved and now he can concentrate on healthcare.
I would also like to remind you that I think human rights and stopping a stupid war is highly more important than healthcare in the greater scheme of things. Sorry.
Lord Help Us
October 14th, 2009
9:37 am
Cons, Wall Street nipping at the 10k mark this am, disagrees that our economy is collapsing…
Bosch
October 14th, 2009
9:38 am
USinUK,
I think we should ease up on the Nunn bashing for DADT. Today it seems rather ridiculous, but back in the day it was a good transition until a future time (which, now is good) when the whole “gays in the military” is so blasse a topic that people hardly wake up from their naps when the topic comes up.
MDHM
October 14th, 2009
9:38 am
Lyndon B. Johnson had no problem telling the military that he was in charge, and that they were going to integrate Black troops. He didn’t worry about the brass’ complaint that it would take a long time to change their culture. He told them, essentially, You are Soldiers, follow my order. Now. I am fed up with the Alan Alda liberals who have been telling me to stick the DNC, and now Obama, because someday– when it’s safe for them, he might think that I deserve equal rights. No– my next vote is earned.
Bosch
October 14th, 2009
9:40 am
Okay, seriously Blog God, you win. I will look for an appropriate sacrifice to offer up if you’ll let my moderated posts go.
jt
October 14th, 2009
9:41 am
This proves that Palistine has a better education system than the U.S.——-
“All hopes placed in the new US administration and President Obama have evaporated,” the document said.”
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1255204786678&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
TnGelding
October 14th, 2009
9:41 am
Lord Help Us
October 14th, 2009
9:37 am
You know the boys on Wall Street have no clue about our economy.
MDHM
October 14th, 2009
9:38 am
I believe that was Harry S. Truman.
Disgusted
October 14th, 2009
9:43 am
Yes, by all means, don’t worry about the moral objections some heterosexuals may have about homosexuality. That’s just bigotry, after all. Force them to associate with the gays.
Hef
October 14th, 2009
9:44 am
“there might not be as large a percentage of our citizens in the workforce,tho,and that could be a good thing”- who should decide this,the govmnt or the market place? curious
Gale
October 14th, 2009
9:45 am
As MDHM pointed out, it is a simple matter for the commander in chief to order the end of automatic discharge for military personal who are openly gay. Discharge a service person for failures in the military code of conduct at the discretion of his/her commanding officers. But discharge for simply admitting to being gay is stupid. This is the same as the zero tolerance rules in grade school where a key chain merits suspension. Dumb.
Congress needs to step up and repeal this law. How much debate does it really take to repeal a bad law?
jt
October 14th, 2009
9:45 am
Henry Adams observed that “politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.” This marshalling of hatreds is not the whole of politics, to be sure, but it is an essential element. Thus, Democrats encourage people to hate gun and bible clinging country people and Republicans encourage people to hate the gay community.
Of course, it’s all a fraud, designed to distract people from the overriding reality of political life, which is that the state and its principal supporters are constantly screwing the rest of us, regardless of which party happens to control the presidency and the Congress. Amid all the partisan sound and fury, hardly anybody notices that political reality boils down to two “parties”: (1) those who, in one way or another, use state power to bully and live at the expense of others; and (2) those unfortunate other.
TnGelding
October 14th, 2009
9:46 am
To the GLBT population: you’ve come a long way. Patience is virtue.
Mrs. Godzilla
October 14th, 2009
9:46 am
I’d like to see Obama use the power of the Executive Order to end
Don’t Ask Don’t Tell this very morning.
However, what I have read leads me to believe that might cause difficulties downstream if the policy is not reversed by the legislature. If there were to be an administration change (small possibility of that!), folks could be tossed out of the services on their ears.
I don’t like it, but it’s probably best to let HR 1283 work its way through the system.
Lord Help Us
October 14th, 2009
9:47 am
disgusting, “Yes, by all means, don’t worry about the moral objections some white people may have about African Americans. That’s just bigotry, after all. Force them to associate with the African Americans.”
Now, how does it sound, cuz that’s exactly the argument made prior to integration…
Gale
October 14th, 2009
9:47 am
Disgusted, by any chance, are you over the age of 30?
AmVet
October 14th, 2009
9:48 am
The underwhelming spinmeisters of the right-wing see justice and equality for all as some sort of odd, quaint and outdated notion.
They know that throughout their bigoted history, such ideals are impractical and will never placate an angry, white, xenophobic “base”.
To wit, tolerance to these reactionaries has become de facto “embracing”.
tolerance -noun: a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward those whose opinions, practices, race, religion, nationality, etc., differ from one’s own; freedom from bigotry.
embrace -verb: to adopt (a profession, a religion, etc.): to embrace Buddhism.
And the supposed justification?
“…for not embracing a lifestyle that we disagree with.”
As was the justification for the James Earl Ray crowd…
The faces have changed from blacks and Jews to gays, Mooslims and Mexicalis, but the “conservatives” irrational animosity and deep seated paranoia has not.
Thank gawd the modern day McCarthyites are longer remotely in a position to do anything about their collective hatred disguised as dissent…
TnGelding
October 14th, 2009
9:48 am
Hef
October 14th, 2009
9:44 am
In reality, it’s probably a combination. Fiscal and tax policy certainly have an effect on markets.
RW-(the original)
October 14th, 2009
9:50 am
Jay B, I also disagree with you that this is something that should be eased along. It’s not like the President is by nature a deliberative person and you can look no further than Porkulous and HCR to see that, but this is exactly the time to end DADT.
There isn’t a huge opposition to it and we’re not in an election year. (If he waits until next year it’ll surely be put off until 2011) He also has the perfect cover from another standpoint. He could say he wants to go along with McChrystal’s plan but needs to end DADT to be able to fill the manpower needs. Even if he has no plans to go along with the general this still gives him a “national security” issue to wrap this in.
Republicans couldn’t block the change in Congress and would probably even allow this to go through without much opposition so they would have more credibility on things they oppose of more substance.
stands for decibels
October 14th, 2009
9:53 am
DADT could and should be stopped tomorrow with just a word From President Obama
See, the thing is, up to now when the wingnuts scream and carry on that the Kenyan Prince is operating outside the Constitution and ruling by decree or some such nonsense, they’ve been utterly and completely wrong, wrong, wrong. With a capital “R”.
If on the other hand this Administration were to say “we’re no longer going to enforce laws we find odious, starting with the biggest stinkeroo of them all, DADT”… they’d maybe have a point.
AmVet
October 14th, 2009
9:55 am
jt at 9:45 and RW at 9:50, well said…
Beavis & Butthead
October 14th, 2009
9:56 am
“…that governing a closely divided country is complicated and difficult,” Harwood said.”
He said Harwood…
he he he, ka-chortle
Yea Yea Butthead…HarWOOD.
Beavis & Butthead
October 14th, 2009
9:58 am
“To the GLBT population: you’ve come a long way. Patience is virtue.”
She said Long…
Yea Beavis LOOONNNGG
Nothing Is Free
October 14th, 2009
10:03 am
So i walk into my office this morning and one of the first things I read was posted by the most bitter, non-accpeting troll on the board. He can’t write a single post without going on and on about people who think differently than he.
But he posts this:
**tolerance -noun: a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward those whose opinions, practices, race, religion, nationality, etc., differ from one’s own; freedom from bigotry.**
LOL!!!
What a great laugh to have this early in the day. Thanks, AmVet, you should be a comedian.
LOL!!!
Gale
October 14th, 2009
10:03 am
Mrs G, thanks for the HR1283 reference. I wanted to take the time to read this, and I am surprised at the broad backing it has. There is security in numbers it seems. If a large number of representatives and senators sign on to move this along, it could be accomplished with little fanfare by this congress.
USinUK
October 14th, 2009
10:04 am
“I think we should ease up on the Nunn bashing for DADT”
sorry, Bosch, but I disagree with you on this. this abomination is Nunn’s brainchild – he fought gays in the military tooth and nail, so I don’t think this was really his best “college try”
(and the longer it goes on, the more we hear from numpties like disgusted … oy
)
Gale
October 14th, 2009
10:09 am
After reading HR 1283, DOMA needs to be next on the chopping block.
MDHM
October 14th, 2009
10:11 am
What long way have GLBT people come? Did I miss a memo? Cuz, for me, I still see that I get taxed more, can’t travel with any safety, and in most states I can be denied a job or a mortgage because of what I do at home. And when I die, all the money that I paid into SSI goes away, not to my spouse.
But Let me know- I would love to take the rest of the day off, and go celebrate my having come a long way. I’ll call all my friends!
stands for decibels
October 14th, 2009
10:11 am
USinUK, I’m with you on Nunn. Until he formally apologizes to all whose lives have been wrecked by his idiotic notion of “compromise” with the thugs for his own role in that wreckage, and lends a stronger voice than the tepid one heard so far on this issue, he still sucks.
pat
October 14th, 2009
10:17 am
I thought you were in to focusing on “real” issues today?
Kayaker 71
October 14th, 2009
10:19 am
Bed Wet,
It is difficult to have a debate with you on this, or most any other subject, due to your heated and outspoken rhetoric. Name calling, demeaning those who disagree with you is the status quo with you. At least some of the posters on this blog who might be considered contrary to conservative opinion just disagree, without all of the militant and scathing dialogue that is common in your posts. About half of America has little interest or cares much about gay “rights”. They believe that marriage belongs to one man and one woman and that relationships of this kind are the backbone of the traditional family unit. That’s about 150M people, Bed Wet. Hard to ignore. And all of them are not Bible thumping Evangelicals hell bent on shoving Christ down your throat. They just don’t agree with the lifestyle, plain and simple.