According to AP, the soldier “accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of sensitive items to” WikiLeaks, is using his sexual orientation as a defense:

The young Army intelligence specialist accused of passing government secrets spent his 24th birthday in court Saturday as his lawyers argued his status as a gay soldier before the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” played an important role in his actions.

Lawyers for Pfc. Bradley Manning began laying out a defense to show that his struggles as a gay soldier in an environment hostile to homosexuality contributed to mental and emotional problems that should have barred him from having access to sensitive material.

Gay groups should join us in denouncing this tactic.  It makes gay people out to be not just victims, but individuals lacking any kind of moral fiber, willing to betray their country when the going gets tough.  Tens of thousands of gay man and women served in the military in similarly “hostile” environments and did not break under pressure.  Indeed, many, if not most, of these individuals distinguished themselves in our nation’s armed forces.

We should not stand by when a man uses his homosexuality as an excuse for betraying his country.

Those who want to improve the image of gay people should join us in denouncing Mr. Manning and in faulting his defense team for using his sexuality to excuse his criminal acts.  What he did was wrong.  And just as there have long been bad apples among our number (a Mr. K. Philby comes to mind), so too have long been similarly rotten straight people (see A. Hiss).

Gay people (and those who presume to represent us) should not make excuses for the bad apples among us — particularly when they claim their sexuality made them rotten.  It speaks poorly of people like us if we accept this man’s defense.

And we at GayPatriot do not.

Supporting the status quo on gays in the military, that is, after the repeal of the misguided Clinton-era Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell (DADT), may not help a candidate win Republican votes in states like Iowa with a large concentration of social conservatives.  That said, saying, as Rick Perry does in his new ad, that “there’s something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military, but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school” is more the mark of desperation than of sound political strategy.

Now, I’m all for kids openly celebrating Christmas and praying in schools (if they so choose  – and provided they do so on their own, that is, not in prayer organized by a teacher or school official). As should all people. Heck, the “free exercise” clause of the First Amendment guarantees it. (And the “establishment” clause does not trump it.)

It’s a nice rhetorical trick to contrast the open service of gay people in the military and the open celebration of Christmas, but the juxtaposition just doesn’t work, save perhaps to remind voters of the candidate’s social conservative bona fides.  In doing so, Perry is really jumping the shark.  His campaign is sinking and he is making a desperate ploy to gain traction.

I doubt this tack will work.  Even among socially conservative Iowa Republicans (as among Republicans nationwide), jobs and the economy are the key issues: (more…)

To explain why I found former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum’s response to the question on gays in the military so bizarre, let me fisk the entire comment and offer a conclusion at the end of the post.  First, the question from Stephen Hill, a serviceman deployed in Iraq:

In 2010, when I was deployed to Iraq, I had to lie about who I was, because I’m a gay soldier, and I didn’t want to lose my job.

My question is, under one of your presidencies, do you intend to circumvent the progress that’s been made for gay and lesbian soldiers in the military?

And the candidate’s response:

Yeah, I — I would say, any type of sexual activity has absolutely no place in the military. And the fact that they’re making a point to include it as a provision within the military that we are going to recognize a group of people and give them a special privilege to — to –

I chose to break the former Senator’s comment here because up until this point, I agree with everything he is saying.  Our soldiers should not be engaging in sexual activity while on duty.  And the military shouldn’t give special privileges to any group.

To be sure, it’s bizarre that the Senator begins his response as he has, saying sexual activity has no place in the military.  (He’s right about that.)  Perhaps, he believes that if gay people serve, they would necessarily engage in sexual activity with their fellow soldiers.

and removing “don’t ask/don’t tell” I think tries to inject social policy into the military.

Well, he does quality his remarks with an “I think,” but his thought is at odds with the meaning of repeal.  Here he makes a huge leap from the first part of his response.   (more…)

Some bloggers on the gay left are trying to make much of no more than three** audience members who booed a gay soldier asking a question in last night’s debate, with one blogger saying the Audience Boos Gay Army Soldier Asking Santorum About DADT. The audience didn’t boo him. At most, three disrespectful jerks did.

But, for some on the left if there is one nutbag in a conservative crowd, said nutbag defines the crowd.

Despite his unusual answer* last night, the inconsequential presidential candidate did the right thing today. The former Pennsylvania Senator condemned those who booed the soldier:

“Yeah, well, I condemn the people who booed that gay soldier,” said Santorum. “That soldier is serving our country, I thank him for his service to our country. I’m sure he’s doing an excellent job. I hope he is safe, and I hope he returns safely, and does his mission well.

FROM THE COMMENTS:  V the K is “not sure that the soldier was being booed”:  ”The booing got an immediate and angry reaction from nearly everyone sitting around him, who hissed and shushed at him. Lots of loud gasps, “Shhhh!” “No!” “Shut up, you idiot!” etc.”   Wonder which gay lefty bloggers reported that.  He also reminds us:

. . . multiple incidents of union violence, the display of socialist icons at Democratic party events, a pattern of cronies and campaign donors getting huge Government “loans” and subsidies … are all supposed to be aberrations that don’t typify the left at all.

* (more…)

Most of this summer I didn’t get to post too much because I had been quite busy preparing for another deployment. It’s from that forward location that I’m able to post for you today, this historic moment.

And it’s appropriate, I think.

I joined the military after Bill Clinton had signed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, so I never lived in a military where simply being homosexual was grounds for discharge. I lived my entire military career, up until today, as a closeted gay man in uniform. I followed the rules, kept it to myself (save a few other gay servicemembers and a handful over the years of closely trusted colleagues), and never ran afoul of the rules. I did my job, and I did it well.

I continue to do so, and I am not alone.

So it’s fitting, then, that I should spend this day—when gay “rights” groups back home will celebrate some sort of liberation of mine—simply doing what I’ve been doing for about 20 years: my job. While politically-minded activists will be slapping themselves on the back and praising the newly-granted privileges I and my fellow gay servicemembers now enjoy, we and tens of thousands of other deployed troops will spend today doing what we do: Our job.

While I appreciate your gladness on my behalf, please do take a moment today and keep in mind that there were some of us who were serving under DADT without regard for it.

While I am grateful that the era of homosexuality being the military’s business has ended, I am grateful more so for those who, like me, joined the military knowing the score and choosing this rewarding life anyway.

While I welcome those young men and women into the ranks of our military who heretofore had waited the policy out, I am much more proud of those who didn’t require their own terms be met in order to answer the call to serve in the first place.

It’s already Tuesday, September 20th, 2011 where I am, so I’m one of the first gay servicemembers in history who can legally come out. I won’t of course, but from now on, I’ll belay the gender-nonspecific pronouns and no longer demure when the stories turn to family. I just Skyped with my boyfriend back in the States and we talked about this whole thing. He’s proud of me, but I’m also proud of him (as all my colleagues are of their families back home). I’m in love with him, we’re quite a pair. And if I wanted to, I could take a picture of us into my office today and put it right on my desk.

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from A Forward Operating Location)

Today in 1993, President Clinton signed one of the most landmark anti-gay rights laws ever passed in the United States of America — the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law.

Gay leftist revisionist history types like to blame Republicans in Congress for *making* Clinton sign a law.

FACT: Democrats controlled the US House under Bill Clinton until 1995

FACT: THE leading elected official advocating for outright ban of gays in military and then DADT was US Sen. Sam Nunn (D-GA)

FACT: Bill Clinton ran radio ads in his 1996 re-election campaign heralding his support of DADT and the Defense of Marriage Act

Facts are stubborn things.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

News this evening coming down that the 9th Circuit Court has, once again, decided it knows better how to defend America than do our own Armed Forces, elected officials, or duly appointed and confirmed leaders of the DoD.

Still looking online for something official from the court, but the short story is that they’ve decided that, since DADT repeal is chugging along just fine, it’s time to screw up the entire process.

It seems that the court has used the continuing success of an orderly process combined with a lawless Administration which refuses to do its job to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” with respect to DOMA as its basis for deciding to run the US military regardless of what’s best for National Defense.

With former SecDef Gates predicting certification (the needed step for implementation of the end of DADT) occurring within the month, and current Secretary Panetta stating in his confirmation process that he supports repeal and will work to implement it upon certification, I’m still puzzled why LCR continued their suit.

No, I’m not puzzled as to why they said they were continuing: Because they don’t trust, apparently, the military and/or the Administration to actually do what they said they’d do (let alone follow the law). Naturally, having witnessed the current Commander in Chief in action lo these two long years, I can understand why you’d want to see the cash first. But there have been zero indications that there would be any problems with the repeal coming to fruition. Even the Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps told his troops to “get over it” and press on with our duties to implement the new policy.

It boggles the mind, then, why anybody who respects the military and our mission would insist on pressing forward with this case. Let’s review the facts:

The whole purpose of passing the law last December was because everybody (except, apparently the 9th Circuit Court and the glory hounds at LCR) realized that we needed an orderly transition from the DADT world to the non-DADT world. As that process continues, it’s not any less important that it take place orderly. Any disruption is unnecessary and needlessly dangerous. (more…)

The Wall Street Journal’s Washington Wire blog features today some snippets from an interview with “Sgt. Maj. Micheal Barrett, recently selected to be the senior enlisted adviser to Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Amos”. With a “long military resume, including combat service in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Nathan Hodges quips that “he doesn’t need a microphone to get his point across.” And when he comes to Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, he cites a most important charter:

“Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution is pretty simple,” he told a group of Marines at a base in South Korea. “It says, ‘Raise an army.’ It says absolutely nothing about race, color, creed, sexual orientation.

“You all joined for a reason: to serve,” he continued. “To protect our nation, right?”

“Yes, sergeant major,” Marines replied.

“How dare we, then, exclude a group of people who want to do the same thing you do right now, something that is honorable and noble?” Sgt. Maj. Barrett continued, raising his voice just a notch. “Right?”

Sgt. Maj. Barrett then described conversations with U.K. troops, who saw a similar ban lifted a decade ago, with little disruption. And to drive the point home, he produced a pocket copy of the Constitution.

“Get over it,” he said. “We’re magnificent, we’re going to continue to be. … Let’s just move on, treat everybody with firmness, fairness, dignity, compassion and respect. Let’s be Marines.”

Emphasis added.

FROM THE COMMENTS:  ILoveCapitalism offers:

What’s important is that the military preserve its high performance and no-nonsense attitude by applying a uniform code of conduct to punish those individual gays – or straights, whomever – who do undertake actions that disrupt morale and unit cohesion.

Exactly.

The folks at Servicemembers United, a group “which represents gay and lesbian troops and veterans” repotst “that the White House had barred civilian representatives of gay and lesbian military families from” a White House event spearheaded by First Lady Michelle Obama and Second Lady Jill Biden honoring military families:

“It is rather unfortunate that both East Wing and West Wing staff have refused to allow a representative of gay military families to even be in the room at an event that is supposed to honor their commitment and sacrifice,” said Alexander Nicholson, Executive Director of Servicemembers United.

Kristina Schake, Communications Director for the First Lady, explained the decision this way in an email to CBS News.

“The President has been crystal clear that the Administration is moving forward with the repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ quickly and efficiently,” she said. “However, it still remains the law. The White House, including the First Lady and Dr. Biden, look forward to working with the families of gay and lesbian service members after certification occurs and repeal goes into effect.”

Nicholson, from Servicemembers United, complained in his statement that “[t]he First Lady’s office has used the continued enforcement of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ as an excuse to exclude us, even though they know that ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ does not apply to the civilians who work at their advocacy and service organizations.”

I’m sure other gay organizations will be rushing to criticize the White House for not including this group.

One of the best arguments I’ve heard against the repeal of DADT (which, as we say in the business is now OBE) is that it will lead to a new level of mamby-pambyness vis-a-vis gay troops demanding they be treated “fairly”. Often as we’ve noticed, when any “rights” group is looking for “fairness” it’s often simply code for “special rights”.

For the majority (based on my experience) of gay troops, our lives will likely not change much on a day-to-day basis. I, for one, am not planning to “come out” to anybody save a few close friends where I work. I’m expecting, in fact, that they likely know about me anyway. (After all, such a devilishly handsome man with so much going for him my age not married? He must be gay! Har har, but anyway…) Inasmuch, I don’t expect most gay troops will be demanding anything much more than simply not getting kicked out if we forget to use the gender-neutral pronouns when speaking of our dates.

This is not to say there won’t be a few (which will likely seem like much more than a few) flamboyantly unprofessional troops whose conduct will surely be seen as unbecoming and hopefully will be counseled right away. That will be a touchy subject I’ll save for another post.

For now let’s talk about “special rights”.

Many have argued this is a stepping-stone to a larger “gay rights” agenda. I’ve never seen it as such, and I regret that there will definitely be many gay “rights” champions who will misuse this to further their own agenda (much as those opposed to gay “rights” will also use it to further their agenda). They have no concern necessarily about the defense of the Nation nor about the military. We are a tool for them to use and they should be ashamed, if they knew any such thing as shame in the first place.

There’s another thing that I think might come of this which would be a good sign. Check out this quote from the DoD’s report on the repeal of DADT:

We do not recommend that sexual orientation be placed alongside race, color, religion, sex, and national origin, as a class eligible for various diversity programs, tracking initiatives, and complaint resolution processes under the Military Equal Opportunity Program. We believe that doing so could produce a sense, rightly or wrongly, that gay men and lesbians are being elevated to a special status as a “protected class” and will receive special treatment. In a new environment in which gay and lesbian Service members can be open about their sexual orientation, we believe they will be accepted more readily if the military community understands that they are simply being permitted equal footing with everyone else.

(emphasis added)

This is a sentiment I (as most libertarian conservatives) have long espoused: Equal treatment, not special treatment. Which leads to the next logical question: Why should “race, color, religion, sex, and national origin” be the basis for special treatment either? If gays and lesbians “will be accepted more readily” if not treated differently, wouldn’t that also be the same for members of these other groups? What an interesting outcome of this whole episode if the entire concept of “special” categories of troops went by the way-side?

For all the talk (and legitimate, I might add) of “unintended consequences” surrounding the repeal of DADT, what a happy accident it would be if, by virtue of this new policy change, we had to rethink how we treated everybody. Because if there’s no good reason to treat gays and lesbians as “diversity programs” (and there isn’t), then why do we need them in the first place? This could be a whole new chapter in respecting each other as individuals and as part of a larger team rather than the social balkanization the Left so often loves to use to drive us apart.

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from TML)

Unlike Bruce Kesler, I lack the time to read the entire Pentagon Study on repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Would it that it would come out after I defend my dissertation just over a week from now.  Joined by Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates today urged the Senate to repeal the so-called ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ law this year“:

Gates said any change causes short-term disruptions, but that the military can handle longer-term impacts. He added that he’s recommending repeal of the law after fully studying the potential impact on military readiness, including the impact on unit cohesion, recruiting and retention, and other issues critical to the performance of the force.

To be sure, some troops in combat units raised concerns, but substantial majorities of servicemembers overall have no issues about serving with gay people, with 69 percent of those who responded to the survey believing “they had already served alongside a gay person.  Of those who believed that, 92 percent said their units were able to work together and 8 percent said the units functioned poorly as a result.”

Kesler points out that “the report calls for gradual implementation” which is, as it should be.  Mullen said

. . . he agreed with Gates that “this is a policy change that we can make and we can do it in a relatively low-risk fashion,” given time to prepare forces and leaders for new rules and expectations.

Given this report and the military brass’s commitment to implement repeal, consistent with the legislation before the Senate in this gradual manner, which all the various services to develop a policy for implementing the new policy, it’s imperative that the Senate act swiftly on repeal, so that the military brass can do their job and put that policy in place as quickly as possible.

For an opposing view, check out what this McCain has to say.

I’m thrilled to write this from a great event being hosted by Servicemembers United.. It is a fundraiser in Miami to support SU’s efforts to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” through the legislative process.

Alex and Jarrod from SU have done more to push through Congressional repeal than probably any other group. They served our country once, and are now devoting their time to make sure many others can serve in the military if they so choose.

The added personal benefit of this event is that it’s being held at the former home of Howard Hughes in Coral Gables, FL. I’m a big Hughes history buff. Woot!

Please read more about Servicemembers United and consider contributing to the cause!!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

This news broke earlier today. Chris Geidner has a nice wrap-up at Metro Weekly:

In a sign of the wide-reaching impact of U.S. District Court Judge Virginia Phillips’s injunction halting enforcment of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, Pentagon spokeswoman Cynthia Smith today wrote that “[r]ecruiters have been given guidance, and they will process applications for applicants who admit they are openly gay or lesbian.”

The statement provided by Smith in an email to Metro Weekly, and first reported by the Associated Press, comes on the heel of a report in The New York Times that Omar Lopez, who is an out gay man, was turned away at a recruiting station in Texas because of his sexual orientation despite the judge’s injunction resulting from the Log Cabin Republicans v. United States case.

Smith also wrote that “[r]ecruiters are reminded to set the applicants’ expectations by informing them that a reversal in the court’s decision of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law/policy may occur.”

UPDATE FROM BRUCE:  Even Clinton’s adviser on gay issues blames the Democrats, Obama and the Gay Borg for this disaster.

“The Democrats have been against ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ for more than a decade and why we allowed this law to remain in effect for another two years is beyond me,” said Richard Soccarides, who served as an adviser to Clinton on gay rights. “The Washington-based gay rights groups made a decision early on that they were better off going along with the president’s timeline and that right now that looks like a serious miscalculation.”

******

In 1993, then-President Bill Clinton moved too quickly in trying to overturn the ban on gay people serving in the military, seeking to effect the change in the first days of his Administration.  President Barack Obama — or at least his party’s Senate leadership — made the opposite mistake, waiting until election season was well underway to vote on repeal.

The former president wasn’t prepared for the media firestorm.  The current Democrats let the issue become a political football.

It seems neither really had a political strategy to seek repeal.  There were times, though, particularly at the beginning of this year where the Administration did seem to have a plan, dispatching, in February, “the nation’s top two defense officials,” Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, to Capitol Hill to press for repeal of Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell (DADT).  Having learned from Clinton’s mistakes, the incumbent president wisely sought to work with the military, having them make the case.

But, they didn’t have a timetable for a vote.

And that made it more difficult for pro-repeal groups to rally their troops and to try to persuade wavering lawmakers, particularly Republicans, of the merits of repeal.  While John McCain has not distinguished himself in the current debate, walking back from his previous position that he would listen to military leaders on repeal, Harry Reid deserves the brunt of the blame.  Were he sincere about repeal, he would have pressed the Senate to act soon after the House voted on repeal in May.

Then, by tacking the controversial DREAM Act onto the “defense policy bill” onto which he had already tacked DADT repeal, Reid made passage even more difficult.  Republicans Susan Collins (Maine) “voted to block the bill for procedural reasons despite supporting the provision to” allow repeal of’ DADT.  Scott Brown (Massachusetts) offered a similar rationale, saying “his vote against considering the bill was not necessarily an endorsement of keeping the ‘don’t ask’ policy, but a protest against Democratic political maneuvering to limit debate while adding unrelated amendments.”

Reid’s political machinations cost him the support of Republicans favorable to repeal. (more…)

As Congress prepares to debate repeal of Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell (DADT) today in Washington, our federal representatives should consider the experience of those nations which have allowed gay people to serve openly in their nation’s military.  In Politco yesterday, Maj. Peter Kees Hamstra of the Royal Dutch Army, Leif Ohlson of the Swedish Armed Forces and Lt. Com. Craig Jones, retired from the Royal Navy of Britain observe:

Moral opposition to homosexuality, while real, is just not allowed to undercut our militaries’ missions.

Nor do we think it will have any impact on yours after you repeal “Don’t ask, don’t tell.”

This is an important point because many Americans seem to believe that ending anti-gay discrimination in European and Israeli militaries faced no resistance because our cultures are more tolerant.

 In fact, our polls, rhetoric and even threats of mass resignations were quite similar to the continuing resistance in America. Yet none of the doomsday scenarios came true.

 According to research and assessments of our transitions, the new policies had no negative impact on military readiness.

Once again, the experience from nations which have allowed gay people to serve openly in the military shows that such service does not compromise military readiness or unit cohesion.

The plan before Congress appears to be a good compromise, repealing the Clinton-era legislation which prevents gays people from serving openly while giving the Administration the authority to work with the military to allow for a smooth implementation of the new policy.

So much to blog about when I have so little time to blog about it.

I still need do my post on George Alan Rekers and pseudo-science.  May just do it as a short bullet-point post and leave it as an item for discussion as I doubt I’ll have the time to turn my ideas into a thoughtful essay before I depart on my “odyssey.”

A number of readers have alerted me to this great post where a number of milbloggers, most highly respected in the rightosphere, issued a statement on DADT, concluding thusly, “we welcome open and honorable service, regardless of sexual orientation.”

Another sign of the emerging consensus for DADT repeal, even among the military community.

Read the whole thing.

Defense Secretary Bill Robert (d’oh! thanks, Kurt…I do decaff) Gates’ letter yesterday to Ike Skelton, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee urged Congress to postpone any legislative action on reversing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

Here’s the main part:

I believe in the strongest possible terms that the Department must, prior to any legislative action, be allowed the opportunity to conduct a thorough, objective, and systematic assessment of the impact of such a policy change; develop an attentive comprehensive implementation plan, and provide the President and the Congress with the results of this effort in order to ensure that this step is taken in the most informed and effective manner.

What the Secretary was saying is just what I’ve said many times (and speifically here): The military doesn’t change it’s toilet paper without an exhaustive investigation into its impacts on effectiveness and performance.

Naturally, the Leftist blogosphere is apoplecitc. The paragon of measured and rational thought, Pam Spaulding calls the letter “incredibly offensive and craven”. Then she goes on to completely miss the point I make above by basically dismissing the role of the Pentagon in the recinding of the rule.

What’s more, by choosing to demonize Gates (and the entire Pentagon, apparently), she’s alienating an ally who’s already stated his desire to see DADT repealed. It’s the unhinged lunacy of people like Pam and other “advocates” who clearly put “gay” “rights” above National Defense who are debasing the actual discussion.

Don’t Ask Don’t Tell should be repealed and gays and lesbians allowed to openly serve. But it needs to be done because it’s in the best interest of our defense, not because it’s unfair. What’s more, if we make this change simply because it’s the “fair” thing to do, we’re setting a very dangerous precedent: That our National Defense decisions are not a carefully determined series of choices based on what will best protect our Nation and her interests; rather they’re politically and socially motivated reactions to certain civillian cultural pressures. That is no way to run a military nor defend a country.

Would that such vocal opponents had more rationality behind their arguments, we’d likely have solved this long ago.

(As a self-promoting whore, I’d like to once again direct you to my series on the topic from a few years ago.)

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from HQ)

“The nation’s largest lawyers group has has officially come out against “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” the 1993 law that forbids openly gay people from serving in the military“:

In three separate letters Monday to both chambers of Congress and the Department of Defense, the American Bar Association [ABA] called for an end to DADT and offered legal assistance in drafting a new policy. . . .

[ABA President Carolyn] Lamm notes that Americans don’t have a fundamental right to serve in the military, but writes that “there is no sufficient reason in our view to continue to deprive these men and women of the opportunity to serve their country and to deprive the nation of their talent and skill.”

Very well said, Ms. Lamm.  Nice to see her acknowledge that this is not an issue of fundamental rights.  And while I agree these gay men and women who want to serve and are otherwise qualified to do so should have the opportunity to serve, I also think we need point out the national security aspect of repeal, that by limiting the pool from which military recruiters can draw, we limit the number of able bodied Americans who can serve.

Simply put, the ban deprives the military of thousands of men and women eager to serve, to risk their lives to defend the nation that we all love.

Mr. President, with the ABA coming out for repeal, it’s clear a consensus is building for you to keep your campaign promise.  Please tell us your press secretary misspoke when he said the Administration had no intention to push DAT repeal this year.  The time for action is now.

Check out my newest posting at BigJournalism.  Here’s a sample:

Now I don’t really get into the whole “shouting down the President” and “handcuffing to the White House gates” approach to things. But it is very disturbing that Obama’s people are using the District police to prevent reporters from doing their jobs and covering an act of peaceful civil disobedience. I can only imagine the breathless and shrill outrage by network news anchors tonight if Bush-Cheney had kept the press away from the White House during an anti-war protest in 2005? Surely the Bush Press Secretary would be “The Worst Person In The World” tonight on MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann. So why shouldn’t Robert Gibbs be tonight?

<….>

Not surprisingly, the demonstrators [in Los Angeles on Monday night] have not received much national media attention despite the shocking rebuke to the President most favored by gay rights groups in recent years.   I do seem to remember that during the 2003-2008 time period, network news reporters and camera crews seemed to be just a phone call away for even the smallest chance that a Code Pink or Cindy Sheehan appearance might interrupt then-President Bush or then-VP Cheney.

It seems King Barack I doesn’t like protests, especially from his left flank.

Please read the whole thing so they keep me over at BigJournalism!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

It now appears most of the forward motion in the Obama Administration on scaling back Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell comes from appointees with Republican backgrounds.  Last week, we reported that the only Bush appointee in the Obama cabinet, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, had approved new rules making it harder to discharge gays from the military.

Now, we learn that

The secretary of the Army, John M. McHugh, said Wednesday that he was effectively ignoring the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law because he had no intention of pursuing discharges of active-duty service members who have recently told him that they are gay.

Mr. McHugh, the Army’s civilian leader and a former Republican congressman from upstate New York, said that he had initiated the conversations with service members in recent months as part of the Pentagon’s review of how best to carry out a repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law, which requires that gay service members keep their sexual orientation secret or face discharge.

Seems if Obama wants to get something done, he turns to a Republican.

While this is a step in the right direction, it appears only to apply to conversations openly gay soldiers have with the Army Secretary.  Still, that he will allow such exchanges indicates he’s willing to listen to such service members, a necessary step toward understanding the concerns and learning how best to allow their service while continuing to maintain the army’s effectiveness.

The New York Times headline, Secretary of the Army Says He Will Not Pursue ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Discharges, does seem to miss the mark, not accurately summarizing the article’s content.