Frank Rich on Don't Ask Don't Tell

Frank Rich:

But that’s not the whole explanation for the scant pushback in Washington to Mullen and his partner in change, Defense Secretary Robert Gates. There is also a potent political subtext. To a degree unimaginable as recently as 2004 — when Karl Rove and George W. Bush ran a national campaign exploiting fear of gay people — there is now little political advantage to spewing homophobia. Indeed, anti-gay animus is far more likely to repel voters than attract them. This equation was visibly eating at Orrin Hatch, the Republican senator from Utah, as he vamped nervously with Andrea Mitchell of MSNBC last week, trying to duck any discernible stand on Mullen’s testimony. On only one point was he crystal clear: “I just plain do not believe in prejudice of any kind.”

Now that explicit anti-gay animus is an albatross, those who oppose gay civil rights are driven to invent ever loopier rationales for denying those rights, whether in the military or in marriage. Hatch, for instance, limply suggested to Mitchell that a repeal of “don’t ask” would lead to gay demands for “special rights.” Such arguments, both preposterous and disingenuous, are mere fig leaves to disguise the phobia that can no longer dare speak its name. If gay Americans are to be granted full equality, the flimsy rhetorical camouflage must be stripped away to expose the prejudice that lies beneath.

It’s in this political context that we can see that there may have been some method to Obama’s troublesome tardiness on gay issues after all. But as we learned about this White House and the Democratic Congress in the health care debacle, they are perfectly capable of dropping the ball at any moment. Let’s hope they don’t this time. Should they actually press forward on “don’t ask” in an election year with Mullen and Gates on board — and with even McCain’s buddy, Joe Lieberman, calling for action “as soon as possible” — they could further the goal and raise the political price for those who stand in the way. Recalcitrant Congressional Republicans will have to explain why their perennial knee-jerk deference to “whatever the commanders want” extends to Gen. David Petraeus and Gen. Stanley McChrystal on troop surges but not to Mullen, who outranks them, on civil rights.

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Potomac, MD high school students get fliers saying therapy turns gays straight

First off, it's a lie. The groups that claim they can"cure" you of being gay themselves admit in their own literature that they can't cure you. I know, because I did a massive research project on those groups earlier in the decade. Even they don't claim to 'cure' you. And they claim they "cure" thousands of gay people every year, yet they always have the same handful of people as "proof." I mean, at this point, after this many years, they'd have a small town full of cured gay people, so where are they? It's really abominable that a school district would permit a group to disseminate a lie to their students.

The schools are required to distribute literature that isn't deemed hate speech from any registered nonprofit organization four times a year, the result of a 2006 lawsuit, said Dana Tofig, a spokesman for the Montgomery County Public Schools.

School officials said that while they aren't always happy with everything that goes home with students, their hands are tied by the results of the litigation.

Great, then I hope the students are getting pro-gay information every quarter. And, if Aryan Nation wanted to distribute, say, recipes to the students, in the name of Aryan Nation, proudly marked all over the literature, inviting the students to join their group and give them a call, then that would be okay too? After all, recipes aren't hate speech. Why do I have a feeling the school would find a way to stop that hate group, but not the "pray away the gay" crowd. Read More...

Anthony Woods on a smart repeal of DADT

Our friend and West Pointer, Anthony Woods, is calling for a smart repeal.

During this time of war, abolishing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell will strengthen our fighting force by allowing all capable Americans to serve our country honorably, regardless of their sexual orientation. To suggest the men and women of our military are incapable of handling this is an insult to their professionalism.

Those who oppose this policy—rapidly dwindling in their numbers—are growing in their desperation. Arguments at Tuesday’s hearing ranged from Senator Chambliss’ predictions that our troops will devolve into a life of booze and “body art” as order and discipline disintegrates into chaos to Senator McCain’s insistence that the policy should be kept in place because it is “well understood.” Well, senator, just because blacks understood their place was at the back of the bus or that they weren’t fit to be served at the counter, does that mean those policies should have stayed in place, too? I think not.

But, those of us who support repeal shouldn’t break out the Champagne just yet. While Secretary Gates, Admiral Mullen, and now Colin Powell have delivered mortal wounds to this discriminatory policy, we cannot rest until we’ve accomplished the mission. If the battle for health care has taught us anything, it’s that a handful of citizens screaming in a town hall meeting can send even the best-intentioned politicians running away from smart policy.

Will we see an intelligent plan that is successfully executed or will we get thrown under the bus again? We've seen this play before and the question should be whether or not the inability to lead is deliberate. Do our leaders really want progressive change or are they just mouthing the words? Read More...

Why Obama Suddenly Took on 'Don't Ask Don't Tell'

A gay conservative credits the liberal gay blogosphere for moving President Obama on Don't Ask Don't Tell this year:

It certainly wasn't the Human Rights Campaign, which has been playing a game of make-nice with Democrats in Congress and the Obama administration. Its leader, Joe Solmonese, ever quick to criticize Republicans when they fall short on gay issues, has been tepid in his criticism of the president when Obama failed to keep campaign promises to the gay community. No wonder ABC News' Rick Klein, in his October list of the "10 Least Powerful People in DC," pegged "Gay-rights advocates" at No. 7, citing in particular Obama's failure to repeal DADT despite repeated promises to do so.

If the HRC's strategy had been effective, the administration would have long ago begun the process of repealing DADT.

It may instead have been an effort by a coterie of liberal bloggers and activists calling "for a temporary moratorium on DNC donations" who made the administration realize there was a price for its inaction.

The fledgling movement, which adopted the motto "Don't Ask, Don't Give" and has attracted the likes of legendary gay rights activist David Mixner, aimed at discouraging donations to the party until the passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and the repeal of both "don't ask, don't tell" and the Defense of Marriage Act.

Mostly left-of-center bloggers at such sites as Pam's House Blend, Queerty and AmericaBlogGay pressed their readers to boycott the Democratic Party.

Their actions generated a lot of heat in the community, culminating in a cover story in the Advocate, a monthly gay newsmagazine. And threatened with this loss of revenue from some of their most reliable (and affluent) supporters, the Obama administration surely realized it needed to act quickly on one of those issues, lest it lose a significant chunk of its financial support and alienate some of the party's most enthusiastic backers.

So, this gay conservative blogger's hat is off to his fellows on the other side of the political aisle. Unlike the heads of the establishment gay organizations, they didn't kowtow to the leaders of the political party they prefer and refused to accept their promises of action on some undefined date in the future.

A number of other gay bloggers/Netroots were just as instrumental. You can find Don't Ask Don't Give here. Read More...

Gay couple on Caprica last night (spoiler)

To get back into our SyFy Friday mode, even though it's now Saturday, the new Battlestar Galactica spin-off, Caprica, has a scene with a gay couple tonight. And, it's good (you can see a preview via the link above). The religious right will flip. The nephew asks them why they never had children. It's pretty cool - Sam Adama, the mafioso, is the gay guy. Oddly, though, when his brother walks into the room, he turns to him and says, in Greek, "adelfi mou," which means, "my brother." I'm dying to know why they chose Greek. Okay, Googled that one - apparently the language of the Taurons is derived from Ancient Greek. And actually, there was a second Greek phrase thrown in to, when they're saying "cheers," they say it in Greek. Read More...