Secretary of Defense Robert Gates
Should shut the fuck up.
For the past seventeen years or so, America's armed forces have had a policy popularly known as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" or DADT. DADT basically says that if you're gay you can join the military so long as you don't tell anyone. In exchange for this silence, your superiors aren't supposed to ask.
They will anyway, even to the point of intercepting mail and recording phone calls.
Thousands of Americans have been dismissed from the armed forces since 1993, for the simple reason that they weren't straight - not that they couldn't shoot straight.
Recently a Federal judge handed down an injunction that effectively abolished DADT for all American servicemembers worldwide.
And that has Bob Gates' panties in a wad.
See, Gates believes that it's the Congress that should rule on DADT's abolition, and only after the Pentagon completes its much-ballyhooed 'study' into the ramifications of legalizing gays in the military. Of course, Gates is much in the dark about reality, as his use of the words 'action' and 'Congress' in the same sentence blatantly illustrates.
His real babe-in-the-woodsness comes at the point he mentions the Pentagon 'study.'
DADT's been in existence 17 years, Bobby, and that's a good long time for most studies to build up the dataset you require. What is going on here, in my opinion, is that the Pentagon top brass and the bureaucracy in that five-sided Monument to Murphy's Law are going to 'study' the problem for another 17 years - or until a new government comes into power that won't ask them to even think about anything so icky or gross as homosexuals in the military. Other countries may do it, but not the good old God-fearing self-righteous bigoted and homophobic U.S. of A., right?
Wrong. The First Amendment allows people to petition the Congress for a redress of grievances, that is very true, but when Congress balks or drags their feet it is the right of every American to take it to the courts. The rather distressing waffling of the President on this issue makes it doubly certain that DADT will be abolished through judicial action, not legislative.
And Bob Gates can simply shut up and learn to get along, as the token Republican in the Cabinet.
For the past seventeen years or so, America's armed forces have had a policy popularly known as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" or DADT. DADT basically says that if you're gay you can join the military so long as you don't tell anyone. In exchange for this silence, your superiors aren't supposed to ask.
They will anyway, even to the point of intercepting mail and recording phone calls.
Thousands of Americans have been dismissed from the armed forces since 1993, for the simple reason that they weren't straight - not that they couldn't shoot straight.
Recently a Federal judge handed down an injunction that effectively abolished DADT for all American servicemembers worldwide.
And that has Bob Gates' panties in a wad.
See, Gates believes that it's the Congress that should rule on DADT's abolition, and only after the Pentagon completes its much-ballyhooed 'study' into the ramifications of legalizing gays in the military. Of course, Gates is much in the dark about reality, as his use of the words 'action' and 'Congress' in the same sentence blatantly illustrates.
His real babe-in-the-woodsness comes at the point he mentions the Pentagon 'study.'
DADT's been in existence 17 years, Bobby, and that's a good long time for most studies to build up the dataset you require. What is going on here, in my opinion, is that the Pentagon top brass and the bureaucracy in that five-sided Monument to Murphy's Law are going to 'study' the problem for another 17 years - or until a new government comes into power that won't ask them to even think about anything so icky or gross as homosexuals in the military. Other countries may do it, but not the good old God-fearing self-righteous bigoted and homophobic U.S. of A., right?
Wrong. The First Amendment allows people to petition the Congress for a redress of grievances, that is very true, but when Congress balks or drags their feet it is the right of every American to take it to the courts. The rather distressing waffling of the President on this issue makes it doubly certain that DADT will be abolished through judicial action, not legislative.
And Bob Gates can simply shut up and learn to get along, as the token Republican in the Cabinet.
posted by Walt at 3:24 PM
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