Ed Brayton is a freelance writer and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of Michigan Citizens for Science and co-founder of The Panda's Thumb. He has written for such publications as The Bard, Skeptic and Reports of the National Center for Science Education, spoken in front of many organizations and conferences, and appeared on nationally syndicated radio shows and on C-SPAN. Ed is also a Fellow with the Center for Independent Media.(static)
Ed Brayton also blogs at Positive Liberty and The Panda's Thumb
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Posted on: May 10, 2008 9:02 AM, by Ed Brayton
Joe Sestak, a Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania and retired 3 star admiral, has called for the end of the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy.
"Once you have served in war and faced danger with a gay service member, how can you come home and say gay people should not enjoy equal rights? It is simple. 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' must be repealed."Sestak joins 16 other veterans in Congress who are co-sponsors of legislation to lift the ban on openly gay service.
Hear, hear.
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Comments
Prepare for the inevitable slander on his military career by scurrilous cowards who never saw combat and would melt into a quivering mass of jelly if they did.
Posted by: AnneS | May 10, 2008 9:28 AM
Yes Ed what was the Whitehouse's comment on Joe Sestak's idea? -DJ
Posted by: DingoJack | May 10, 2008 10:01 AM
Thanks for posting this. I'm happy to hear Sestaks' comments. In the UK, the Royal Navy is actively reaching out to the gay community--target marketing--and out gay officers have been allowed for years, as is also the case in the military forces of some other Western European nations.
Posted by: IseFire | May 10, 2008 11:49 AM
I'm trying very hard right now to not make a joke about the Royal Navy.
Okay, just a small one.
"The only traditions of the Royal Navy are rum, sodomy and the lash." - Anthony Montague-Browne
Posted by: Sivi Volk | May 10, 2008 3:20 PM
The military has played an intersting role in the furthering of minority rights in American society. In the case of African-Americans it was World War Two that was a real tipping point. The country was fighting against facism abroad yet allowing Jim Crow back home. The mistreatment of returning black soldiers so enraged Harry Truman that he integrated the armed forces in 1948. It is true that Truman had balls of steel and was prepared to do the right thing despite the backlash. But I also believe that Truman understood that white Americans perceptions of blacks would change due their heroics on the battlefield.
I think the same process in under way regarding gays in the military. When homosexuals prove themselves heroic on the battlefield the impact is tremendous. The military plays big in the imagination of the average American.
Posted by: Cheddar | May 10, 2008 7:34 PM
I once saw a documentary filmed during Vietnam, at least I remember it as a documentary, where you could actually see a white bigot questioning his views. He was well known in an infantry unit as a racist. But when he got shot in the middle of a rice paddy it was a couple of black guys who crawled out into the gunfire and dragged him to safety.
Vietnam was a confirmation of what the marines learned in the Pacific during WW2 when the commandant declared that black marines were marines and they would be treated as fellow marines, and equals, by the corp. This was reconfirmed in Vietnam.
Perhaps, just perhaps, Iraq and Afghanistan might serve a useful purpose, one of the few possible positive outcomes of these wars, as the time when the powers that be that recognized that a willingness to fight and take orders is far more important than which way a man's penis points.
To my mind, if this was so, this time might also be when the attempts by the Xians to take over the military come to their Waterloo. Not so many Xian mothers would be so eager to have their spawn enter the military if they know that admitted and uncloseted gays will be serving beside their clean and righteous sons. Made even more a problem because so many of these mothers are sure that gay is a lifestyle choice and a disease that their precious sons might catch.
Posted by: Art | May 10, 2008 8:16 PM
In a few days, there probably be a "news" article on one(-sided)newsnow.com with Elaine Donnelly and/or Peter LaBarbera denouncing Sestak.
Posted by: daniel rotter | May 11, 2008 5:00 AM
Ok can't resist here goes my Naval comment (but it involves the US Navy)
A Naval vessel recieved the signal:
REQUEST YOU ALTER COURSE 30 DEGREES TO STARBOARD.
The Captain of the vessel signaled back:
NEGATIVE. REQUEST YOU ALTER COURSE 30 DEGREES STARBOARD.
The reply came back:
ALTER COURSE IMMEADIATELY 30 DEGREES STARBOARD.
So the captain, somewhat miffed, replies:
I AM US NAVAL VESSEL. COMPLY WITH COURSE CORRECTION IMmEADIATELY.
The reply:
I AM LIGHTHOUSE. YOUR CALL.
Posted by: DingoJack | May 11, 2008 5:28 AM
Cheddar wrote:
Well, not exactly. Truman was running for election in '48 (not re-election, as he'd ascended from the vice-presidency). He was negotiating with the Democratic National Convention, which, following Hubert Humphrey's lead, had voted for a strong civil rights plank, including desegregation. Truman had supported a more moderate civil rights approach, to keep southerners happy, but following the adoption of the strong approach, he signed an executive order ending segregation in the Service. Part of his purpose was also to gain votes from African-Americans, in a camaign he was not expected to win.This is not to say Truman didn't believe he was doing the right thing, but to say he acted out of moral outrage is a little too high-school historyish, where we have the need to deify our heroes, rather than look at the more interesting and complex reality of the events.
Posted by: James Hanley | May 11, 2008 11:35 AM
Along those lines, Truman was facing pressure from civil rights leaders to do something about discrimination. They threatened threatening to do a march on Washington which could have cost him many of those votes.
Posted by: Skemono | May 12, 2008 12:07 AM