{"id":5902,"date":"2011-09-21T00:05:53","date_gmt":"2011-09-21T07:05:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=5902"},"modified":"2011-09-21T00:05:53","modified_gmt":"2011-09-21T07:05:53","slug":"dadt-celebrating-the-end-of-an-era","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/09\/21\/dadt-celebrating-the-end-of-an-era\/","title":{"rendered":"DADT: celebrating the end of an era"},"content":{"rendered":"

When President Clinton first signed DADT into law, I have no doubt that he thought he was doing something good for the LGBT community.  Given the climate in Congress and the Military leadership in 1993, he got the best deal that he could.  Sadly, the witch hunts did not end, and DADT turned out to be little better that what preceded it.  I have openly supported the end of DADT, since I first started blogging in 2003, and although I have no personal stake in the matter, I am proud to support the end of an era of legalized bigotry, prejudice and hate and to rejoice with those who do.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\"21dadt\"Service members compelled to publicly reveal that they are gay or lesbian took advantage of the end of the \u201cdon\u2019t ask, don\u2019t tell\u201d policy in several ways Tuesday, as military officials reported no noticeable increase in activity at military recruitment stations<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

In one of the most dramatic declarations, a U.S. service member, purportedly serving in Germany, posted a video of himself on YouTube<\/a> calling his father in Alabama to tell him for the first time that he is gay.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan I tell you something? Will you love me, serious?\u201d asks the service member, who uses the moniker \u201careyousurprised<\/a>\u201d on Twitter<\/a> and Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cDad, I\u2019m gay,\u201d the service member says, his voice dropping. \u201cI always have been, I\u2019ve known since forever, and uh, I know I haven\u2019t seen you in like a year, and I don\u2019t know when\u2019s the next time I\u2019m going to be able to see you, I didn\u2019t to tell you over the phone, I wanted to tell you in person.\u201d<\/p>\n

The father assures the man that he still loves his son, who then smiled and said he still needed to tell his mother. The service member is heard saying in the video that he waited for more than four hours before deciding to call his father with the news\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Washington Post<\/a>><\/p>\n

Few people have done more to fight for the end of DADT than Rachel Maddow, and she covers this young man\u2019s story and much more.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/font><\/p>\n

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news<\/a>, world news<\/a>, and news about the economy<\/a><\/p>\n

It is truly a day to celebrate.  I\u2019m sorry that bigotry, prejudice and hatred will continue openly, as long as the Republican Party, who openly embrace it, has any power at all.  They need to be sent the way of the Whigs.  On to DOMA!<\/font><\/p>\n

There is a graphic that I have frequently used to point out the utter hypocrisy of discriminating against lesbians and gays in the military.  I hope this will be my last occasion to use it.<\/font><\/p>\n

\"whichgay\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When President Clinton first signed DADT into law, I have no doubt that he thought he was doing something good for the LGBT community.  Given the climate in Congress and the Military leadership in 1993, he got the best deal that he could.  Sadly, the witch hunts did not end, and DADT turned out to […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5902\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}