Say whaaaaa….? We did a spit take on reading this. The Pentagon will mark June as its official gay pride month, celebrating the lives of all the men and women who can now proudly serve after the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.
This comes right on the heels of President Obama also declaring June as Gay Pride Month. Have we’ve died and gone to gay heaven? These sudden sweeping political about-faces are astonishing.
According to the Associated Press, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta wants to salute the contributions of gay service members. The details are still being discussed.
The Pentagon has a tradition of celebrating diversity within the armed forces, including Black History Month and Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
Cue right wing nutjob reactions in 5…4…3…2…
[Image via mattradickal]
Oscar
Somehow, I don’t see the military honestly embracing the homosexuals just yet.
This is likely just a “false fag” operation, hyuck, hyuck!
Michael Bedwell
An admirable video salute has been released by Secretary of Defense Panetta, but here’s what’s wrong with it and the picture painted by yet another hack article by someone from the Associated Press. While one must concede, “better late than never,” that, at the end of the second week of Pride Month here, as of yesterday, they still weren’t ready to identify WHAT they’re doing screams “last minute surrender to pressure to do SOMETHING despite resistance from recalcitrant Pentagon bigots.” And the rest of the Huff Po article, while good for cataloguing some of the in-the-ranks progress, demonstrates what we suffered from repeatedly before repeal, and continue to: professional “writers” working for the Associated Press who know NOTHING about the facts so simply keep regurgitating to their readers what they’ve been spoon fed by paid DOD shills. Worst of all is the rerun blatant Big Lie Pentagon spokeswoman Eileen Lainez has been telling since last year: “The department is carefully and deliberately reviewing the benefits from a policy, fiscal, legal, and feasibility perspective.”
Sorry, Ms. Thing, some of us know better—specifically that ALL those issues were analyzed TWO YEARS AGO, and the results detailed in the Pentagon pre-repeal report published in November 2010. And, as far back as August of last year, SLDN wrote the Obama Administration asking them to order reversal of what the Pentagon had admitted was ARBITRARY discrimination in those benefits the report identified that are NOT banned by DOMA such as access to military family housing.
Ironically, the article trumpets, “This month’s event will follow a long tradition in the Pentagon of recognizing diversity in America’s armed forces. Hallway displays and activities, for example, have marked Black History Month and Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month,” without noting/knowing that the recommendation of that same November 2010 report were that gay service members “NOT… be placed alongside race, color, religion, sex, and national origin, as a class eligible for various diversity programs….” [Emphasis theirs.] HOPEFULLY, whatever they end up doing this month will erase than prohibition forever.[St. Judy, Panetta’s video can’t be ALL there is!]
At the same time, the HP/AP hack says nothing about the fact that another ongoing ARBITRARY policy is the ban on including gay and lesbian service members in the protections against harassment and “job discrimination” under the Military Equal Opportunity Program automatically extended to nongay blacks, women, and members of ethnic, religious, and political groups. SLDN’s request to President Obama to clean up that mess post repeal implementation goes all the way back to February of 2011. In the video, Panetta talks about working hard to fix ongoing inequities when, in fact, he could fix most of them with the proverbial stroke of his powerful pen.
YES, huge progress has been made, but virtually all of it has been driven from the ground up by gay service members themselves while the persistence of these arbitrary policies of discrimination prove that the tail of Pentagon homophobes is still wagging the dog, and would like nothing more than the upcoming “Pride event” to go something like this:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/412759_2866730567023_242127800_o.jpg
Wally
This is nice and all, but we really need to get the VA Medical system onboard with all of this so that they can provide appropriate health care for the gays. Too many entrenched, fearful homophobes in that system…
jack
This U S Navy veteran and radarman on a “Tincan” thanks you Mr Obama and Mr Panetta. Oh how wonderfully the nation has changed. Just remember to vote DEMOCRAT in November.