Comments on: How the UK Military Lifted Their Gay Ban

By: Teddy Partridge

Teddy Partridge — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 00:53:44 +0000

Oh, but nahant — you know that filibusters break the highly valued comity of the US Senate! We can’t have Harry Reid bringing anything to the floor that won’t get 60 votes. Except of course the crossing-state-lines concealed-carry bill which ended up getting only 58 votes. Funny how GOPs always get their bills to the the floor and debated despite not having 60 votes, isn’t it?

By: Stubear

Stubear — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 23:34:58 +0000

I’m lucky enough to have a ‘vacation’ home (which became my full-time home from Bush’s invasion of Iraq until last spring) in southern Spain, and remember reading a weekend feature piece there in El Pais sometime around 2001-2002 about the addition of gay couples to on-base married-couples’ housing on Spanish military bases. The focus of the story was that it was no big deal. The only opposition came from the Catholic Church, and nobody’s paid any attention to them for decades. Within the military itself, it was pretty much a non-event.

By: nahant

nahant — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 23:28:25 +0000

Gillibrand couldn’t gather the 60 votes needed to avoid a filibuster, according to a spokesperson.

I say let the asswipes Filibuster and then we can make sure their names are posted all over the place and use it against them at their election time!! Oh na d make sure that it widely know that are taking basic rights away from American Citizens!!

By: Clovis

Clovis — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 23:12:16 +0000

I have it on deepest background that the reason for the lifting of the Gay Ban was that spies have informed the separate post commanders that the term actually referred to a non-regulation and expensive pair of commie sunglasses sold at the BX.

By: Teddy Partridge

Teddy Partridge — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 23:00:53 +0000

The Daily Beast has learned that the Senate, prompted by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, will hold hearings on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”—a first since 1993, despite Obama’s campaign promises.

After determining she didn’t have enough votes in support of a temporary suspension of the ban on gays in the military, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand tells The Daily Beast she has secured the commitment of Senate Armed Services Committee to hold hearings on “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” this fall. It would be the first formal re-assessment of the policy since Congress passed it into law in 1993.

A statement from the Gillibrand’s office, shared exclusively with The Daily Beast, notes that “265 men and women have been unfairly dismissed from the Armed Forces since President Barack Obama took office.”

Gillibrand’s fast-track proposal for halting DADT, an amendment to the Military Reauthorization Act that would have ordered the Defense secretary to stop investigating gay service members, was never introduced. Even with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid expressing his support, Gillibrand couldn’t gather the 60 votes needed to avoid a filibuster, according to a spokesperson.

By: Teddy Partridge

Teddy Partridge — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 22:57:58 +0000

The one thing that is difficult, both for closeted troops and their superiors, is that suddenly “I’m not lying to you anymore about the thing I lied to you vigorously about yesterday. The fellow who was my roommate, honest sir! is now my partner, that gal I go on holidays with is my wife,” and so on. This, many British troops thought, would be the hardest part of coming out to fellow servicemembers and superiors: “You know that thing you asked me about? Well, I was lying to you.”

Especially for troops under active investigation, suddenly all the lies they were telling were neither operative nor required. How would their peers and their bosses react to being lied to, in some cases for years? Wouldn’t people be angry?

But most people seemed to understand that the previous regime was brutally inhumane. And they let the lies go.

By: dakine01

dakine01 — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 22:55:16 +0000

But even if the Pentagon is conducting these meetings, they have to obfuscate and hide the meetings for self preservation.

Too many wing nut types in Congress that would immediately grandstand the issue and try to pass a law banning even the discussions.

By: Teddy Partridge

Teddy Partridge — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 22:54:02 +0000

You are welcome, and thank you!

By: Teddy Partridge

Teddy Partridge — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 22:53:44 +0000

ONe of the things people miss, so often, about the military is that it is a Command environment. No one could make servicemen love African-Americans when the troops were integrated under Truman. But orders were given to treat everyone the same. This is what will happen with gay and lesbian discrimination as well: no one says you have to be anyone’s best friend, but once non-discrimination is the order from the top, things go smoothly.

Not that this could have happened under that bigot Peter Pace, but he’s gone and things are improving.

By: Teddy Partridge

Teddy Partridge — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 22:51:15 +0000

Yes, and someone should ask our Pentagon about these meetings. Who is having them, under whose orders, and on what timetable? The Pentagon shouldn’t be having these meetings secretly; we should know what other military’s unclosetings they are also looking at (Canada? Israel? Australia?)

Having the Pentagon saying “no plans” when our allies claim they meet with us isn’t helpful.