I fully support the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Act of 2010 and value the service of all those who fight for our country. I know firsthand the profound sacrifice our service members and their families make, and if confirmed as Secretary of Defense, I will do everything possible to the extent permissible under current law to provide equal benefits to the families of all our service members.”—Defense Secretary nominee Chuck Hagel, responding to questions from Sen. Barbara Boxer. Hagel has come under criticism for previously supporting DADT and dismissing the ambassador to Luxembourg as “aggressively gay”
Source: ThinkProgress
Michael Bedwell
Yet, AGAIN, we ask why SLDN, in their disproportionately laudatory response to Hagel’s anemic statement, has failed to address the REAL problem: the now two-year old REFUSAL by the President/Commander-in-Chief to order ANY of his Secretaries of Defense to extend the multiple benefits to gay military couples not banned by DOMA and to issue an order banning discrimination against LGB service members given the Pentagon has REFUSED to include them in the protections against harassment and discrimination of the Military Equal Opportunity automatically guaranteed to nongay service members on the basis of race, gender, ethnicity, and religious or political affiliation. They should be demanding ACTION by MR. OBAMA NOW not licking after pie-in-the-sky promises by his latest nominee who can/will do nothing without the President’s approval. “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” – former slave and abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass.
jwrappaport
@Michael Bedwell: Eh, he’s not ideal for us, but it’s good he feels pressure to keep us happy – which is to say that it’s good that the climate of opinion is such that he’s responsive to our misgivings, irrespective of his true intentions.
That said, you are dead right: Obama will never exercise any courage on gay rights unless it’s politically expedient. He will concede nothing unless we demand it, so we shouldn’t be complacent with the bones he throws us, tasty as they are.
watching1
He maybe okay for some gays, but he’s definitely not good for women in the military. He’s got issues with choice, he may as well be Todd Akin on rape, and these things have a profound influence on military women. Maddow lays it out well.