Repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell NOW!

[firedupdem]

Now I’ve been against the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy since President Clinton signed the damn bill, I thought it was a stupid compromise that wasn’t going to work since it gave too much discretion to the military, which is overrun with macho, homophobic men who are probably overcompensating for their inability to deal with their own sexuality. In the early 90′s, it may have been the only thing that could pass both houses and be signed by the president, but that certainly doesn’t make it a good thing. I bet some are wondering if not passing anything would have been better, in hindsight.

Since President Obama made his intentions clear to repeal the policy in the campaign, it’s been kind of surreal how he has been attacked by the LGBT community. One of the primary reasons I started this blog was because I was banned from Americablog for basically calling many of the commenters that horrible word “impatient”. This was about a year into President Obama’s term, he was dealing with huge issues…anyone remember being on the verge of the second great depression, anyone remember the battle to try to bring health care to more Americans, anyone remember how Republicans were saying no to everything the President attempted, just for political gain? The way some of the leaders in the LGBT community responded and continue to – has been way over the top. They don’t even seem to know who their friends are. It’s like a fucking twilight zone, really. A policy that was passed by the husband of Hillary Clinton, who most of these sore losers supported, and has been in place for what…18 years, all of a sudden becomes President Obama’s fault. All the anger at this misguided policy has been placed at the feet of the one person who is actually trying to repeal it. How fucking stupid is that?
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I’ve heard many of these folks scream and cry that he could issue an executive order immediately and stop it….and then when Sarah Palin is elected president, she can reverse that and we’re back to where we were. Great plan, guys and girls. They usually counter with, he can put a stop to it and then repeal the law after that. Well that may make sense on the surface, but just like with many other issues, these people don’t consider the dysfunctionality of our political process. The way President Obama has been approaching the issue is exactly how it should be done. Getting the buy-in of the military leaders, getting real opinions from servicemen and women and their families and following the procedures for passing an actual law that is much more permanent than some executive order. It has allowed for the time to measure public opinion, which is strongly against the DADT policy. The executive order route during the primary season in the Republican party would have been just lovely, don’t you think? Because it wasn’t in the forefront, it didn’t become a campaign issue and thus avoided some polarization. Once you throw an issue into a partisan battle, lines are drawn and political identification begins to trump well-reasoned positions. Now I don’t expect the whiners to get this nuance, because they can’t even seem to deal with the word “patience”, but regardless of whether they get it, the President is doing what is best for all people in the LGBT community, not just the vocal, so-called leaders of the community. Some of these folks, Aravosis, Greenwald and Savage have shown how much they really care about progressive issues as they undermine the best friend they’ve ever had in the Whitehouse. How much sense does it make to weaken the one person who is trying to change things for the better, who has appointed more LGBT folks than any president by far in just 2 years as president and who may be the last chance for any kind of change for a long time to come when you consider the pendulum swing to the right that weakening this president has caused.

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