The U.S. Senate approved legislation to repeal the military’s controversial “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy by a 65-to-31 vote on Saturday afternoon. The repeal, already approved by the House of Representatives, now heads to President Obama, who indicated on Saturday that he would sign it into law. Repealing the law, which bars openly gay people from military service, could greatly reduce tensions between the military and university faculty members and students who oppose the policy. According to campus news reports, the policy’s repeal in Congress has already spurred discussions about new relationships with the military at some elite institutions, including Columbia, Harvard, Stanford, and Yale Universities.
RSS
Follow The Ticker through your favorite RSS reader.
4 Responses to Measure to End ‘Don’t Ask’ Wins Final Approval in Congress
coco_rico - December 18, 2010 at 12:43 pm
Hello, my name is Robert O. Lopez, and I am a bisexual scholar in Queer Theory. I am also recently out of the US Army. Below is a link to a column I wrote outlining the key challenges that the military and gay community have to face in making the repeal a smooth transition:
http://colorfulconservative.blogspot.com/2010/12/im-okay-with-repeal-heres-what-i-want.html
The biggest challenge is maintaining the safety of gay males in the Army and Marines after the repeal goes through. If you have time, please read the column and forward it to people with interest in gay issues so they can get some understanding of what to expect and how to protect gay men in the force after their privacy is taken away and the repeal prevents them from getting discharged.
11232247 - December 18, 2010 at 5:30 pm
From the perspective of “meat grinder” wars like WWII, Korea, and Vietnam, it is beyond my imagination to see how a nation could possibly exempt homosexuals from serving in the military. You see, when the butcher’s bill comes due in real wars, it must always be paid.
Sometimes payment comes by way of naive volunteers or selfless patriots. Frequently, however, the payment is also made by many, many involunteers (a.k.a. draftees) who had many better things to do with their lives than to be killed or horribly wounded in some God forsaken distant battlefield.
Bottom line: When the time comes, as it always does, and the national crisis demands it; every healthy American male is going to discover what it means to be eligible to enjoy the awful “privilege” of fighting and dying for his country. I suspect the quaint notion of any man escaping such Hell simply by his claiming a proclivity for engaging in unorthodox sexual activities will cause many of us to laugh.
Welcome to the “grinder” boys. If you’re living the American dream now, you can also expect the possibility of fighting for it, whether you want to or not. No one is going to ask you and no one is going to really give a d*** if you should decide to tell. The bill will be paid and the grinder will be fed. Such is the way of the world since time immemorial.
Duce et decorum est pro patria mori
mjohnso9 - December 19, 2010 at 5:10 am
I wholeheartedly disagree with the inept conclusions drawn by Rober Lopez’s comment above…here’s an excerpt of his unabashedly, politically conservative blog:
“Gays can no longer call themselves victims. They will have to become much more conservative, because now they will be a home civilian front being defended by gay servicemembers risking their lives in their honor. Gay servicemembers are going to be much more conservative in temperament than gay civilians. Many are going to be Republican and Christian. Many are going to have disdain for gay civilian culture. Get over it, gay civilians — you fought for access to a gay-hating, evangelical, right-wing institution like the military, and you got what you bargained for. The gay community can’t snuggle up to Democrats and play leftist politics anymore.”
As a former USAF officer, and queer scholar I find it appalling that after all the work invested in overturning DADT, we still have to fight the offensive, assimilationist rhetoric of “go along to get along” that authorizes homophobic acts of violence and discrimination. Queer servicement and women do NOT have to become “more conservative” or express “disdain for gay civilian culture” anymore than women have to sacrifice their independance and individuality in order to serve in the military. Lopez ineptly draws a causal relationship between “gay civilians” who apparently fought for “for access to a gay-hating, evangelical, right-wing institution like the military”. But the fact of the matter is the while the military trends to political conservatism, this varies based on rank, racial demographic and Branch and Lopez analysis utterly fails to account for these variables. Homophobia exists in part due to the internalized homophobic rhetoric espoused by Lopez and others in their sad, assimilationist ideology.
And what I simply can’t fathom is how an admited “bisexual” elisted man could concievably argue that it is in the best interest of queer servicemen and women to abandon the very political party who pushed for this measure of equality or that civilian queer men and women “got what you bargained for”. I’m sorry Dr. Lopez but if you think “leftist politics” is to blame for homophobia you’re wrong; but then again, it would appear that you don’t consider yourself part of the queer community to begin with…
cragie - December 19, 2010 at 12:46 pm
While this is news, you would think the Chronicle would be more focused on something that will impact the colleges: the latest cave-in from Democrats in Washington. Last week the House passed a continuing resolution through Sept. 30th, but now McConnell (still Senate minority leader) has spoken: There will only be funding for federal programs through February.
This approach is going to result in disruption and pain for anyone who does business with the fed’l gov’t. They need a continuing resolution through Sept. 30th. Otherwise the new Congress will distract from the American people’s business by trying to make deep, retroactive cuts starting in March, instead of making cuts that are effective October 1 per the Constitution.
If the tactic is successful, the fed’l gov’t will end up having to ask for money back from contractors, grantees, states, counties, cities, colleges, students, beneficiaries, etc. In addition, there will be significant layoffs from the federal career and contract workforce — the last thing that is needed during a recession.
The media should not just accept this without disclosing both the pros and the (significant) cons. Otherwise the media will be whining again when our National Parks are locked, people can’t get passports, and fall semester for college is delayed.