The year was 1993. Joe Lieberman was still caucusing with Democrats. He was five years into his gig as a junior senator. He had not yet gone after President Clinton for that Monica Lewinsky thing. His dreams of running as Al Gore’s vice presidential candidate were not yet realized. That is when he, along with still-sitting senators John Kerry, Herb Kohl, Daniel Akaka, ?Kent Conrad, ?Chris Dodd, ?Dianne Feinstein, ?Tom Harkin, Lisa Murkowski, Daniel Inouye, Jay Rockefeller, Frank Lautenberg, ?Carl Levin, ?Patty Murray,
?Mark Pryor, Harry Reid, Barbara Mikulski, and ?Patrick Leahy all voted to make Don’t Ask Don’t Tell a law. On Saturday, they all voted against it. [via]
James
Pretty surprising Murkowski voted for DADT back in 1993 when she only became Senator in 2002.
John (CA)
@James: Barbara Milkuski is from Maryland and has been in the United States Senate since 1987.
Lisa Murkowski is from Alaska and was first appointed to her seat in 2002.
JusticeontheRocks
I think that may have been Lisa Murkowski’s father who voted for DADT in 1993.
A little fact-checking would go a long way.
Justin O.
Also, in 1993 the choice was between no gays in the military, and no open gays in the military. Voting for DADT was the more progressive of the two options, so it’s kind of a weird equivalency you’re making here.
swarm
Classy Queerty. The circa was 1973. And all real girls had to show their drivers licenses to enter the bars to prove we weren’t trans.(unless it was dress up drag night).
And aficionados or support of trans persons meant you were fetishy. Your point in this uninformative unenlightened post?
I repeat. The bloggers on Queerty aren’t even out to the public as to their identities. Likely clueless 20-somethings Pfffft.
jacknasty
@Justin O @Justin O.:
That is exactly what I was going to say. Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was created as a progressive compromise (albeit a stupid one) to prevent gays from being outright banned in the military. Instead of banning gays they agreed to allow gay service members as long as they weren’t out and didn’t tell anybody they were gay, similarly others were told they aren’t able to ask if somebody is gay. It actually was a good idea in theory, however, we know that the “don’t ask” part was not enforced and the “don’t tell” was. Heck most people kicked out under the “don’t tell” didn’t tell anybody so much as somebody did research into their private lives and prosecuted them for it.
reason
DADT was the first step towards LBGT achieving full equality in the military. It was a policy that allowed the country to accept that their were GBLT serving in the military. Awareness alone does wonders toward acceptance, if they didn’t pass DADT then we would be no where near having openly gay people serve today. Even though the policy was not implemented as intended it still did a lot of good in moving the ball forward, though it is sad the sacrifices some GBLT soldiers made. It is an important lesson to progressives, though what you get up front may look like crap it is the first step in creating something brilliant.
GayGOP
That would be Senators Frank Murkowski, and David Pryor, the fathers of the current Senators Lisa Murkowski and Mark Pryor.