"Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Enforcement Suspended

Huzzah!

Don’t ask, do tell?
Do ask, don’t tell?
Ask, tell?
Make up your #$@&% mind already!!!

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Before anyone adds a homophobic, ugly response to this thread, please watch this incredibly moving video by a Fort Worth, Texas councilmember.
If you can watch this and not temper your view with love and concern you are unredeemable.

A lawless, U.S. military hating, Constitution hating, Clinton appointed, leftist lunatic and political activist, who knows absolutely nothing about the United States military or the art of warfare is now determining how the United States military should operate?

God, please help us.

In the meantime, get the articles of impeachment ready for that fanatic (and her small, dark prison cell from which she should spent her last days as an enemy of the United States of America, the United States Constitution and the rule of law.)

Time magazine asserts: “For the first time in 17 years, no one is going to be booted from the U.S. military for being gay, at least for now.”

Someone may want to inform the political activists at Time magazine that the United States military has been booting out homosexuals in its ranks for a lot longer than “17 years”. It’s called the law. Look it up.

What are you talking about? 17 years is how long DADT has been on the books. Before that, there was no law concerning homosexuals in the military, though they did have a policy of discharging anybody found to be engaged in homosexual behavior. All DADT did was legalize a policy that should not have been in place to begin with. More than that, DADT forced a lot of good men and women to lie about who they are in order to serve the country that they love. There is a currently a problem with recruitment not enough young men and women are choosing the military and ending DADT could change that trend. I know my son would be quick to giving the military a serious consideration if DADT were to end, but with it in place he won’t even consider it.

Wait, so what is Obama’s excuse for appealing this decision?
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I know he talks a great game about advocating for gay rights.
But it seems like when he gets something like this, practically gift wrapped, to actually make progress on the issue, he moves like lightning to shut it down.
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Does anyone have a guess at the reasoning behind it? Because it sure seems like shooting himself in the foot to me.

Been there, done that, Cliff. In the mid-70s a group of enlisted women serving in the Navy sued to be allowed to serve on combat ships. There was a statute barring such service, and their suit attacked its constitutionality. The Carter administration was trying to get it repealed, but the government had to react to the suit somehow. I worked on the defense.
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There were suggestions that we argue things like upper-body strength and times of the month, but cooler heads prevailed and the only defense we offered was that Congress and not the courts should make the decision. We pointed to our efforts at repeal, Frankly, we expected to lose, but we didn’t want Congress to think we had thrown the game.
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Sure enough, the judge (Maximum John Sirica of Watergate fame) didn’t buy the argument and declared the statute unconstitutional. Unlike this time around, we decided not to appeal — even the Justice Department agreed — and the Navy proceeded to send women to sea.
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But letting a woman repair radar sets on an aircraft carrier is a lot less controversial than letting gays serve openly in the military. (I’m not saying that’s how things should be, but that’s how they are.) So it’s hardly astonishing that the administration is planning an appeal. There’s a limit to how much you can flout Congress.
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Nevertheless, there’s a strong similarity between the current case and the one I worked on. And I predict that if the court of appeals affirms the trial judge, the case won’t go to the Supreme Court. The administration will have saved enough face by taking the first appeal. Also, I don’t think the next Congress is going to repeal DADT, and the current one will almost certainly wimp out in any lame duck session. So abiding by a judicial decision may be the only way out.
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However it is finally done away with, DADT has been poisonous to public discourse and deleterious to national defense. “Good riddance” will be too mild a reaction. And yet, I would have defended it exactly as I defended that earlier statute, exactly as Justice has defended DADT. That’s what lawyers do.

Obama is appealing based on 2 points:

1) He says its traditional for the government to defend laws passed by congress if they’re overturned by a court. (I think that’s a pretty stupid tradition).

2) Though he agrees with the judge’s reasoning he would prefer a legislated remedy with less abrupt implementation (this is also how he’s defending seeking a stay of the judge’s order, first from the judge herself and if denied from the 9th circuit.)

MID-TERM ELECTIONS

Valarie Jarrett does not like gays. Here it is in her own words.
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http://www.theblaze.com/stories/obama-senior-advisor-forced-to-apologize-for-calling-homosexuality-a-lifestyle-choice/
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“Jarrett was casually referencing a speech she delivered last week to the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights group, about teens who’ve committed suicide after being bullied about their sexual orientation. In praising one teenager’s parents, Jarrett noted: “These are good people. They were aware that their son was gay. They embraced him, they loved him, they supported his lifestyle choice. But yet when he left the home and went to school, he was tortured by his classmates.”

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n.
A way of life or style of living that reflects the attitudes and values of a person or group:

As someone supposed to ship to OCS in June (unless I backslide on my PFT, which… well honestly it could happen) I don’t get and never have understood the argument for Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell or barring gays from the military.
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I have friends that are gay and I’ve played on sports teams with them, they’ve seen me in the locker room and maybe it’s just me but I’m not the type of homophobic moron who is bothered by that. (Personally, I think the really homophobic people are the ones that are disturbed by the fact that they themselves have gay thoughts and take it out on anyone who open about it, but that’s just my opinion.)
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Further, if these people want to serve their country they should be afforded the opportunity. I don’t buy the “unit cohesion” argument because just look at some of the FANTASTIC officers we’ve booted from the Army and other branches because the privately admitted to someone that they were homosexual and it got back to their higher-ups. They had no negative effect on unit cohesion, and many of them had skills we desperately need on the front lines. If anything affected cohesion it was their removal.
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Lastly I don’t think this is a big deal at all, and pardon my language here, because I don’t think that people who are really flamingly gay would join the military. It’s the more “straight acting” ones that would join, by and large.
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Also everything about the military is uncomfortable, hard work, crappy food, getting yelled/shot at… it’s not like Disneyland, so I don’t buy the argument that it makes people uncomfortable. Personally, I feel I’d be a lot more comfortable with a gay guy in my unit that I would be getting shot at.
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Bottom line, I don’t see how allowing gays into the military without forcing them to lie about their orientation is going to turn the Army, Air Force or the USMC into a drag show… now the Navy is another story… (that’s a joke, no offense Navy people out there).