Perhaps they can be kicked out for being bigots

The saga of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, the military ban on gays serving openly, continues. The military decided that part of complying with the district court order meant that they had to allow openly gay recruits to enlist. Dan Choi, the soldier who chained himself to the White House fence in protest of DADT and was later discharged, dashed to the nearest recruiting station. He found he is now too old to rejoin the Marines, so he enlisted in the Army. On his enlistment form he clearly said I'm gay and I'll be open about it.

Valerie Jarrett repeated the Obama Admin line about how the ban must be repealed -- through Congress -- and concluded that those who disagreed with the prez. simply didn't understand the process. Dan Choi led the rebuttal.

The 9th Circuit Court sided with the Justice Department and issued a stay of implementation. In the meantime the Defense Department made it harder to discharge gays if they go back to following the policy. What about all those enormous consequences of having open gays in the military? Many see that as a half-hearted (half-baked?) attempt by the prez. to repair things with gays.

Some of the response from mainstream media is: Of course we have to take things slowly, the military is full of good-ole-boys from rural/conservative areas and we have to handle them carefully or our military will be in a mess. The bigots are still stuck on the fear of being groped in the shower. Which means we have a military so bigoted that such bigotry takes precedence over following orders (harassment of fellow soldiers is already punishable -- though many female soldiers will tell you how well that is enforced). And we have military commanders who are impotent to enforce discipline. That's the image they want to project at home and around the world? Maybe DADT should be reworded to apply to bigots -- you may be a bigot and join the military as long as you are quiet about it. But as soon as someone finds out you're a bigot, you're out of there.

Through all this we're still puzzling out what's going on inside Obama's head. What is his strategy and the logic behind it? Only he and his tight-lipped advisors know. Some have wondered if Obama is demanding repeal come through Congress because of the firestorm from Fundies if he simply obeys the court (all that activist judge and the sanctity of the vote nonsense). Liberals were complaining that Bush pulled in too much power and now they are asking Obama to do the same thing -- except Obama has the cover of that district court.

Obama's options:

* Declare DADT unconstitutional (which the court did for him) and thus he won't follow it. But Obama has very carefully described DADT as "wrong" but not "unconstitutional"
-- in spite of Valerie Jarrett's claims.

* Leave the law in place and rewrite rules (which he has control over) to make sure it is infrequently enforced. He already does that for many laws (as did Bush). In this case only Congress and the military would have standing to object to Obama's rules.

* Obama could let gays serve while waiting for Congress to act.

Perhaps Obama simply wants to stay out of the mess, leaving it up to the military and Congress. Too late. He's making it worse.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Lead

A few days ago Obama gave a speech in support of Barbara Boxer's reelection. Members of Get Equal heckled him, urging him to do something about Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT), the military ban of gays. He says he's for it and working on it and wondered why they were mad at him and not the Fundies?

Could it be because you, sir, are the roadblock and not the Fundies?

Dan Choi is back, chained to the White House fence. This time he brought the same friend as before and four more. One of them is Autumn Sandeen (whose blog entries I read), a transgender woman who has retired from the Navy. She could very well lose her pension to fight to repeal a law which will not affect other transgender military personnel -- they're covered by different rules.

Strangely, the Lafayette Park police (across the street from the WH) shooed the press away from covering this particular demonstration, not at all a normal practice. Some think this was directed by the WH and want to know why.

As the military protesters were getting out of jail we hear that Obama does not want to pursue repealing the DADT law this year -- and had told gay rights organizations back in January that he would not. This is just after the State of the Union address when Obama said that he would work to repeal DADT this year. Since then those gay rights groups have assured us that DADT repeal is on track and not to hassle the prez.

The number discharged under DADT in 2009 (under Obama's watch) is at least 443. That brings the 17 year total of those dismissed to at least 13,425.

This has other gay organizations and many individual gays mighty annoyed with Obama. We're all aware that with elections in November the chances of more GOP seats in both houses goes up and the chances of repeal go down. We're also aware that this is one gay-friendly change that a large percentage of the country (even a large percentage of GOP voters, just not the ones who tend to control primaries). Fortunately, it looks like repeal is working its way through Congress anyway.

However with a change so popular, Obama's lack of leadership on the issue will be noted by lots of people, putting his reelection at a disadvantage. This appears to be an issue where he has the politics all backwards.

Yes, Obama has done a few nice things for gays. His recent directive on visitation rights in hospitals is one of them. But pundits note that all these issues, though they would not have been enacted under Bush, are now so bland that many anti-gay groups are ignoring Obama's efforts. Which means Obama isn't leading on our issues and certainly not being our fierce advocate.

If you want to click on only one link this one is it.

What are you sacrificing?

Dan Choi was interviewed by Newsweek (and I do have a link for that). He discusses his recent protest at the White House, which landed him in jail for the night. The point that caught my attention:

He's giving up his military rank, his unit (who are like family), his veterans' benefits, and his health care. Many of the gay lobbyists have access to fancy meals and lots of prestige and aren't willing to sacrifice that. What are you willing to sacrifice? Jesus didn't need major donors. Gandhi didn't need 3-course banquets. Harvey Milk (and Jesus and Gandhi) lost their lives for their message and the message endures.

Not ashamed, not finished

Several months ago Lieutenant Dan Choi said he is gay. Proceedings to dismiss him from the military have begun, but not yet complete, though it is surprising it is taking so long. Choi spent time away from his unit, using that time to talk a lot publicly about the injustices done to gay people. Choi was recently back training with his unit for deployment this summer. This is background for this week's events, so I'm sorry I don't have links to it all.

Recently, the Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT) policy that requires gays to be closeted while they serve in the military has been debated in Congress and mentioned by Obama, though many supporters in Congress say Obama wants the whole thing to disappear for the rest of the year -- when there are likely more GOP members of Congress and the policy would be harder to repeal.

Not only are many gays annoyed with Obama (that I have written about before), they are also annoyed that the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the top gay lobbying organization, would rather play nice with politicians than to actually do something of substance for gays.

All that came to a head on Thursday. HRC and celebrity Kathy Griffin held a rally in Washington in support of repealing DADT. Dan Choi, in uniform, crashed the rally and asked to speak to the crowd. He had enough of talk and it was time for action. He led the crowd (without HRC or Griffin) to the White House where he said he wasn't going to leave until DADT was repealed. He and another officer then chained themselves to the White House fence. Police and Secret Service let the demonstration continue for an hour before arresting Choi and the other officer.

A couple fine photos here.

The head of HRC was miffed that Choi stole his thunder. Poor baby.

Rather than posting bond and being released, both officers spent the night in jail. It seems that Choi was not even allowed to make a phone call. At the hearing the next day both requested a trial rather than simply paying a fine. When asked to give his plea Choi said, "I'm not ashamed. I'm not finished. Not guilty."

Choi's military career may indeed be over now with this civil disobedience. Fellow soldiers are reportedly annoyed that he took part in politics while in uniform. Even so, it looks like he has a promising career as an activist. This may also be the catalyst for another civil rights movement, this time on behalf of gays.

Also stirring the pot at the same time were several activists working for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) which prevents employers for firing someone simply for being gay. The act reportedly has enough votes to pass the House, yet Speaker Pelosi refuses to schedule the vote. A big reason is that House Dems have stuck their necks out for some controversial votes and the Senate refuses to take up the issues. To demand action these activists entered Pelosi's office and refused to leave until she scheduled a vote or they were arrested. Police eventually came.

Some gay activists were annoyed the ENDA protest was done this week since Pelosi is so busy getting the health insurance reform bill across the finish line. Even though some specific gay-friendly clauses were omitted, the whole thing will help gays as it will help millions of others.

On being released, Choi said, "There was no freer moment than being in that prison. It was freeing for me. I thought of all the other people that were still trapped, that were still handcuffed and fettered in their hearts."

The gay civil rights movement has a new hero and leader.