Last night, when I tracked down the Gallup poll showing increasing number of conservatives favoring repealing the ban on gays serving openly in the military, I saw in the margin a link to poll finding a Majority of Americans Continue[s] to Oppose Gay Marriage. This in line with Pew’s recent findings.
Indeed, while the number supporting state recognition of same-sex civil unions has steadily increased over the past six years, the number opposing gay marriage has remained relatively constant, hovering between 55 and 59 percent (it’s nowat 57).
So, while the President expressed a commitment to repeal both the military’s Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell (DADT) policy as well as the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in his speech Saturday night to the Human Rights Campaign, the smarter move politically might be to put the latter on the back burner and concentrate on repealing the former.
That’s why I commended the Administration for reaching out to Senator Lieberman. He can help frame this as a national security issue, making it more difficult for the military from reacting as they did when, in 1993, Clinton first introduced the idea of lifting the ban. The Democrat announced the move with Barney Frank, a longtime foe of a robust military, standing by his side. And many in the military saw this as a move to enlist them in a social experiment crafted by legislators they did not trust.
That President Obama’s team has been working with the Connecticut Senator suggests the incumbent is aware of his predecessor’s mistakes and wishes to avoid them. With ever larger majorities supporting repeal, the time is ripe for action. But, he shouldn’t dither and should come forward with a time framer move forward on the issue or his promises will be for naught.
So, gay groups should focus on moving repeal, indeed, making this issue their priority, given that the chances of success are high. And to increase those chances, they need end their suspicion of conservatives and build partnerships with those on the right side of the political aisle who have shifted their views on the ban in recent years.
As Liz Mair who served as Online Communications Director at the Republican National Committee in the 2008 (and thus has worked with numerous Republican activists, bloggers and candidates) put it in commenting on my recent post on Lieberman:
National security hawks don’t do things that could be argued to compromise national security just to please or curry favor or campaign donations from particular demographic groups (fellow hawks not being a “demographic group,” at least not in the way I mean).
With Lieberman spearheading the effort at repeal and working together with conservatives who have a record of support for our armed forces, gay groups can reframe this as a national security issue and thus increase the chances of repeal.
Let us hope they are willing to avoid their own past mistakes and do something they seem most reluctant to do–work with conservative.
If you ask me, gays should forget about phony non-rights like both DADT and marriage, and focus on the REAL civil rights they are losing as we speak: the freedom of association that underlies the entire health care free market.
While gays have been suckered into believing that they have a right to societal approval, the people who suckered them into believing it are using their support to
1. take away their rights to determine their own life and death choices
2. force them into a government controlled program where all decisions about what treatment they can and cannot have will be made for them instead of by them
3. drastically increase the cost and drastically decrease the quality and availability of care
4. Destroy the system that is the SOURCE of the vast majority of the worlds medical innovation upon which a large percentage of them depend for their VERY LIVES.
Allow me to put it even plainer… If you have HIV, the Democrats health care reform could very well be your death warrant, since HIV mutates and there are a finite number of anti-HIV drugs. And guess which country produced the vast majority, if not ALL of them? Thats right…greedy, selfish, capitalist America!
These are REAL life and death rights that Democrats are stealing from ALL Americans while they have the “gay community” all worked up in a tizzy about whether or not they are allowed to serve in a job that isnt a right to serve in to begin with — or whether or not the public can be forced into pretending that homosexuality is the same as the sexuality that created every single one of the 105 Billion people born in the history of mankind.
If you support Democrats, you ARE a simple-minded, ignorant, easily distracted, useful-idiot TOOL. Period. And shame on anyone who gives a rats ass about DOMA or DADT right now! They are distractions, not rights and they are being used to distract from and to whip up support for real rights that Democrats are destroying as we speak.
that last sentence should read “…and they are being used to distract from and to whip up support for the destruction of real rights, which Democrats are doing as we speak.
I have steady advocated that ending DADT is the most important step-forwards, since it goes to the very heart of citizenship and the individual…the participation in the defense of the Nation, and being honored and valued for that participation. Versus gay marriage, adoption, etc. that involved the social-compact involving “others”, not just the individual.
And historically, military participation has been causally-linked to the enlargement of the franchise and recognition of individual rights. The American Civil War required the support and participation of the middle and working-classes…and universal male sufferage. The First Wolrd War required female labor and womens auxiliary and lead to the female sufferage and greater legal and social freedoms. This was true not just in America but in Britain and on the Continent. And the need for manpower also rehabilitated the white American South from traitors and sons of traitors to being Americans.
The Second World War and Korean conflict needed the blacks and enboldened blacks and whites to stand up for their rights as “full citizens”. Just as the participation of the Imperial Powers colonies in WW2 lead to those colonies gaining their independence through either being granted sovereign powers; India, the Phillipines…or their taking it themselves; Kenya. Australia, New Zealand and Canada’s dominion status in large measure stems from their roles in WW1.
If an entire class of citizens is banned from open military service, then they still remain partial citizens of the State….and so less valued and less listened-to when they have a grievence against the State. Also, members of that class are disadvantaged from gaining high office and so disadvantaged from assisting others of their class with the power of the State.
I agree completely, Dan. Repealing DADT has always been my priority even though I would no longer benefit from this. Such a move is the most beneficial to gays and society as a whole and from this move much of the other things would come.
Kudos to Ted too for his comments.
Well, I guess the overweight are not full citizens, I guess women arent FULL citizens since there are still all sorts of military jobs they arent allowed to do. Deaf? Blind? Too short? Too tall? Forgetabout it! Youre not real Americans either because you cant defend the nation!
What a load!