Asterisk

Last weekend, every Republican Presidential candidate with a chance of winning (plus Rick Santorum) appeared on stage at the Values Voter Summit, a meeting sponsored by two certified hate groups on par with (and one with ties to) the Ku Klux Klan and the Council of Conservative Citizens.

Family Research Council and American Family Association have both been considered hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center for some time now, and with good reason; both groups push their shared agenda with dangerous propaganda and outright lies about LGBT people.

To repeat: Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, and Rick Santorum all accepted the invitation of these hate groups (as they have for years), hoping to get their endorsements and the votes of like-minded individuals.

Do you really need more information before you cast your vote in the 2012 presidential election? What stance on which issue could possibly make it okay to vote for a candidate who has actively courted bigotry?

It’s over. After 18 long and painful years, the US Military’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell law is officially repealed.

I couldn’t be happier to know that the next generation will only know by my generation’s horror stories what it was like to hide in order to serve, and I can’t help but imagine their reactions.

They will stare in disbelief as they hear Air Force Sgt. Jené Newsome‘s story of police acting as Peeping Toms in order to out her and have no recourse but to accept a discharge.

A closeted servicemember, photograph by Jeff Sheng

Their jaws will hit the floor when they hear how Navy Lt. Tracy Thorne-Begland was paraded before a jeering crowd in May 1993 and all but called a faggot by US Senators. He would be discharged twice for being gay, once before DADT and once after the law went into effect.

They will shake their heads as Army Sergeant Bleu Copas tells how his superiors broke DADT law multiple times, both in asking him directly if he was gay and in breaking into his personal email account to gather evidence, but in the end, his being quietly gay was more destructive than breaking the law, and he was fired.

A closeted servicemember, photograph by Jeff Sheng

They will be stunned into silence as Air Force Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach tells how he was outed by falsely accused of rape and had to decide whether to defend himself against those false claims or continue his military career. Ultimately he chose to defend himself, and after his exoneration had to fight in court not to be fired, finally winning his case only because a court ordered it due to the law being repealed.

They will learn in any respectable military history or LGBT history course about Air Force Major Margaret Witt, who fought her discharge so vigorously and so successfully that a court actually ruled that her discharge was unconstitutional, leading to a legal standard that was actually named after her.

A closeted servicemember, photograph by Jeff Sheng

Those in the next generation will be even more stunned to find that these firings were treated as reasonable and even honorable by more than half the country for over a decade, and by well-respected Republicans for even longer.

Even as we are overjoyed by the end of DADT, we must keep our eye on several loose ends left by the repeal.

1. Repeal notwithstanding, it is still legal today to discriminate against a servicemember because s/he is lesbian, gay, or bisexual. We’re allowed to serve, but we are absolutely without protection against discrimination in promotion or assignment. First thing Tuesday morning, President Obama should sign an executive order, which should end such discrimination.
2. All discharges under Don’t Ask Don’t Tell should be reviewed and upgraded to remove DADT-identifiers. Currently, anyone discharged under DADT faces forced outing any time they apply for a job. Discharges under DADT labeled general, dishonorable, or other than honorable should be reviewed and changed to a more appropriate classification.
3. Discharged servicemembers like Army National Guard Lt. Dan Choi and Army Cpl. Anthony Woods should have debts related to DADT discharge forgiven and previous payments reimbursed. Choi, for example, is getting letters from debt collectors for $2,500 related to his discharge, and Woods has had to pay the Army $35,000 in tuition because they decided they didn’t want to honor their commitment to him. This is unjust and must be reversed.

These actions should happen swiftly and decisively. Doing so would go a long way toward shoring up support within the LGBT community for President Obama’s reelection campaign.

The era of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is ending. Here’s to the new era of fairness and equality that we all continue to work toward.

Photo by Todd Franson

Fortunately, the civil rights leader is equally determined to respond with honor. Following George’s campaign of intimidation on Choi and the twelve other White House protestors earlier this year, a campaign that even left the judge citing Martin Luther Mother Fucking King Junior, Choi alone refused a plea agreement that forced the other twelve to plead guilty to a “failure to move” charge.

To call the federal charges levied against Dan Choi disproportionate would be the height of understatement. Instead of dismissing charges or utilizing the common “post and forfeit” procedure as happens in the vast majority of this type of cases, Assistant US Attorney Angela George told the judge that the protestors were too quiet and polite to charge them with disorderly conduct.

Here’s a quick example of how quiet and polite Choi and his fellow protestors were:

Fortunately, the emerging civil rights figure’s resolve seems undeterred as his trial is set to begin this morning. Clearly, he has learned the truth behind the quote from African American Civil Rights hero Bayard Rustin (who was also gay) that says, “When an individual is protesting society’s refusal to acknowledge his dignity as a human being, his very act of protest confers dignity on him.”

If you’re so inclined, please keep Dan Choi in your thoughts and prayers today. I only wish I’d been cuffed to the White House fence last November so I could stand with him today. It ain’t easy standing alone in a courtroom, no matter how many people stand behind you outside.

A 9th Circuit Appeals Court again ruled last Wednesday that the government must immediately stop enforcing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Here’s an article with specifics on the ruling, but Rachel Maddow broke it down very well with guest Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach last Wednesday night.

I agree with Rachel and Lt. Col. Fehrenbach for the most part. We part ways, however, on advice to closeted soldiers and recruits. To put it simply, it is time for service members of every rank to come out of the closet.

The purpose of self-imposed, situational closeting by LGB service members has changed. It isn’t about finding a way for invisible lesbian and gay service members to serve their country anymore, and it isn’t about sacrificing to that end. No, self-imposed closeting in 2011 is about playing it safe.

Well sorry, you don’t get to do that. Maybe in a generation, or even a half-generation if we play it right, but that just isn’t possible right now. Remaining invisible at this crucial time damages the fight against DADT and the civil rights movement writ large. Frankly, it’s damage we can’t afford to take.

Ask. Tell. NOW.

You are a pioneer, part of an elite force that will blaze the trail for those who follow you. Right now, in the middle of it, that sucks. I know.

It sucked for the first generation of African American soldiers after President Truman integrated the ranks in 1948. It sucked for the first generation of women soldiers after President Ford and Congress opened military academies to women in 1975.

And it will suck for you now as the first generation of LGB soldiers after President Obama and Congress allowed LGBs to serve openly in 2010.

I wish I could pin a medal on your jacket for that, I truly do, but knowing that you helped defeat bigotry in our time will have to do.

We have less than a week before hate group Americans For Truth brings their second Truth* Academy to Columbus, Ohio. Now that we have detailed backgrounds for each of the anti-gay industry representatives, I thought it might be helpful to bring their distilled messages together in one post to see how each instructor’s message will work with the others to create an over-arching theme.

To be honest, I was a little surprised at how well they dovetail into each other.

• Robert Gagnon reduces being gay to “you’re doing sex wrong.”
• Rena Lindevaldsen says that the United States government shouldn’t have the power to decide whether people have sex unless those people are gay, in which case the government must imprison them.
• Greg Quinlan is just glad he isn’t “a flaming faggot” (his term) and says that people have the right not to have gay sex…but they don’t have the right to have gay sex. Because gay people have AIDS.
• Peter LaBarbera uses long-disproven rhetoric disguised as research to demonize LGBT people as mentally ill sexual predator “fascists.”
• Linda Harvey says that LGBT teachers will molest children, and that gays in the military want to bring the nation down. Also, she says HIV/AIDS and other diseases are part and parcel of gay sex.
• Matt Barber agrees with them that gays are sexual predators, but he says we want to molest soldiers. He also calls gays “fascists,” not unlike friend Scott Lively does when he claims that gays are responsible for genocide in Nazi Germany and Rwanda.
• David Kupelian wraps it all up by declaring (falsely) that Christians in America are being persecuted and thrown in jail for not liking gay people very much.

This is the message they spread. All of these speakers make their living in the anti-gay industry and will gasp in shocked amazement if you point out their handcrafted environment that promotes hatred and violence against LGBT people.

The Truth* Academy will be held on April 1-2, 2011 in Columbus, Ohio. Protest details at this link. Please join us.

LaBarbera and company are definitely fringe figures. But their message is dangerous, and it must be countered with actual truth.