HRC’s hopeful commemoration of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’s 14th birthday continues! The non-profit previously featured presidential candidate John Edwards‘ reply to this simple question: “If you are elected President, what concrete steps would you take to overturn ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell?'”
The Democrat didn’t exactly address the question, but chose to remind readers that DADT does no good.
Today HRC features Senator Chris Dodd’s more thoughtful, yet still insufficient answer. Read it and weep at political skirting, after the jump.
Tolerance, fairness and opportunity are fundamental American values. From my strong support for civil unions and work to fight to extend equal benefits and rights to same-sex couples, I believe we should all approach issues facing the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community as if they affected their own children and grandchildren – because it might.
That includes Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Right now we need to be encouraging, not discouraging as many good people as possible to serve in the military. And I believe excluding people from service based on their sexual orientation is counterproductive and does a great disservice to our men and women in uniform and our country. Heroes like Marine Staff Sergeant Eric Alva, the first American wounded in the war in Iraq, should be treated like any other brave soldier who risks his or her life defending our nation.
That is why I believe the time to put an end to the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy has come – a change I called for some time ago. As President, I would call for a meeting with the Joints Chief of Staff to draw up plans that put an end to this policy within 6 months.
I know some remain opposed to this idea – it was only a few months ago that General Peter Pace, then-chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff, made comments regarding gays and lesbians serving in our military that I believed were completely out of line.
But Presidential leadership isn’t about taking the easy path – it’s about bringing people together to get results. For a quarter century, I have been turning Democratic principles into national policies. And ending Don’t Ask Don’t Tell will be one policy I insist upon. At a time of war, when we are having a hard enough time recruiting people–good people who could go on to serve our country honorably–that is the kind of leadership we need in the White House. With so much at stake, we simply cannot afford to spend another second or dime discriminating against anyone who wants to serve in our nation’s military.
Honor, integrity and the willingness to sacrifice ought to be the determining factors as to whether or not men and women can wear the uniform of the United States military – not sexual orientation. As Marine Staff Sgt. Alva knows, repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is an idea whose time has come. And with the right leadership in this election, it will.
Again, a candidate wastes an opportunity to define exactly how they plan on eradicating one of America’s most detestable discriminatory acts. It sort of breaks our homo-hearts.
How about we take this to the next level?
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hisurfer
Not many candidates will give clear and concrete answers to any questions at this stage. Given that, this seems like a pretty strong statement.
Too bad he’s a straight white guy. I’m hoping this is the election we finally break their 200+ year winning streak.
Leland Frances
What I posted yesterday regarding Edward’s response still applies.
The Human Rights Champagne fund could come closer to justifying their 30+ million dollar a year budget by ADVISING the candidates how overturning DADTDP could be accomplished instead of expecting them to come up with a strategy. Unlike HRC, all the candidates have quite a few other far more complicated issues on their plates to attempt to put together solutions for such as Iraq and health care and global warming to name three—PLUS winning the party’s nomination—than just gay issues.
And history demonstrates that the “Relax, Our Messiah [Whoever That Is] Will Take Care of Everything!” approach is doomed to failure. As Michaelangelo Signorile observed in “Queer in America,†one of the reasons DADTDP got shoved down Clinton’s throat is that professional gay activists, particularly HRC and David Mixner and his cronies, were too naive about the fight the Right would put up [including former Magic Negro and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colon [sic] Powell threatening to resign if out gays were allowed to serve] and too busy fighting for turf on the issue to adequately help him try to stand up to them. Members of Congress were flooded with calls, etc., from the Antigay Industry which played into the hands of Georgia Sen. Sam Nunn who, on top of being homophobic like most crackers, was eager to get even with Clinton for passing over him for Secretary of Defense. EVERY LGBT historian agrees that Congress would have acted to overrule any Executive Order—even those who criticized him for not issuing it anyway for purely symbolic reasons.
Earn your keep, HRC!
Timothy
Ummm, guys? You do know that DADT can only be overturned by Congress, don’t you?
Currently those who keep it in place use the argument that the military wants it there. If the Joint Chiefs request it’s removal, then Congress has no further justification for don’t voting for its end. The public has long ago changed its mind – even a majority of Republicans support overturning DADT.
I’m not a big Dodd supporter, but I think his answer was exactly correct here.