Last night’s Delaware Senate debate was where you would find Christine O’Donnell, facing off against Chris Coons, telling the audience she could not remember off the cuff any Supreme Court rulings she disagreed with. But she promised to find some and post them on her world wide web site. What Christine did know off the top of her head, however, is that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is the equivalent of cheating on your spouse.
“The military already regulates personal behavior in that it doesn’t allow affairs to go on within your chain of command,” Christine calmly explained. “It does not allow it you are married to have an adulterous affair within the military. So the military already regulates personal behavior because it feels that it is in the best interest of our military readiness. I don’t think that Congress should be forcing a social agenda on our military. I think we should leave that to our military to decide.”
But why, asks a constituent, does Christine specifically not want gays to be able to serve openly? “Because it [DADT] is a military policy that the military set forth.” No, it’s a law Congress set forth. But that’s not where you’re really wrong, lady.
Paschal
Firstly, the last I checked the U.S.A was not governed by a military junta. The military takes its orders from the civilian government. It’s ridiculous to argue that the government should have to do whatever some people in the military want it to do. Anyway, The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is opposed to DADT.
Secondly, judges interpret and apply the constitution and protects human rights. That’s their job. It’s importnat to have an independent appointed judiciary to safeguard humna rights in any republic.
swarm
Well the military didn’t “take it’s orders” from Clinton so clearly way back when. As you know, the order came from a compromise made with what the military said they could live with.
Whereas she may have been inartfull by saying “set forth” instead of “proposed”… even Clinton says the “vision” came from the military specifically Colin Powell. Who claims Clinton has used him as a scapegoat. Further, even Powell this years stated that the “new” rules [proposals] to stop DADT are coming from the military.
Or are we surprised that politicians are always looking to blame someone else [the military in this case] for their lack of and/or poor decisions.
PER CLINTON:
“I accepted it because it was better than an absolute ban,” Clinton said. “I was promised it would be better than it was. Don’t ask, don’t tell was only adopted when both Houses of Congress had voted by a huge veto-proof margin to legislate the absolute ban on gays in the military if I didn’t do something else,” Clinton said. “So there’s been a lot of rewriting history saying Bill Clinton just gave into that. That’s just factually false. I didn’t do anything until the votes were counted.
Now, when Colin Powell sold me on don’t pass, don’t tell, here’s what he said it would be. Gay service members would never get in trouble for going to gay bars, marching in gay rights parades as long as they weren’t in uniform, getting gay materials, for any of the places they went or any of the things they did as long as they didn’t talk about it. That was what they were promised. That’s a very different don’t ask, don’t tell than we got.”
POWELL:
February 2010, Powell said, “In the almost 17 years since the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ legislation was passed, attitudes and circumstances have changed….I fully support the new approach presented to the Senate Armed Services Committee this week by Secretary of Defense Gates and Admiral Mullen.”
Anyway, the fact remains that Obama doesn’t GAF about LGBT equality in the scheme of things. It’s a bullet point WAY down far on his “to do list”.
marylander
@Paschal: THANK YOU. We have one of the best records of civilian control of the military. But the military now has sort of a personality cult around it. Going against “the generals on the ground” means you’re a treasonous anti-American who hates the troops. More likely its what some opportunistic politician says the generals say.
Israel, Australia, the UK, and Russia (in war time) allow gays in their armed forces and they are certainly not worse off for it.