Shall we?
A bitch watched the television and followed along on Twitter as the Senate voted to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.
This was historic and I damned sure wanted to witness some of it!
A certain Cassie from Virginia reached out to me for my thoughts and she expressed concern over how long it would take to implement the repeal.
I caution folks to pause and enjoy this hard fought victory.
Celebrate, damn it!
And then prepare to write the rest of the sentence.
Because the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell…hell, the implementation of it…is a comma not a period.
As I watched the vote I thought of another historic military Civil Rights happening…the desegregation of the military in 1948.
My Grandfather served in the segregated service during World War II. He was a man of few words, but he spoke with pride of his service.
I used to be conflicted about that…about his pride in serving a country that segregated him as if his race were a plague. My mother was born in 1942 and when my Grandfather traveled to see his new child he was advised to do so out of uniform…because there was the danger of a black soldier in uniform being lynched in Mississippi. The insult of that has stayed with me, though my Grandfather has passed on.
The comma demands that more be written…that the sentence be completed.
We must fight on…for those who can be and will be fired or evicted or turned out of a public establishment because they are LGBT.
And so my thought on the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is that the struggle continues.
Celebrate.
Keep and eye on everything to make sure it doesn’t get fucked up.
And continue…onward toward justice.
9 comments:
I like the idea of the repeal. I just wonder what was traded for it. I wish were told the whole story on things. This is a victory. I hope folks in the military can be mature enough not to harass people who come out.That will be the true test.
Why can't we all live and let live?
Because the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell…hell, the implementation of it…is a comma not a period.
Thank you for this. Some well-meaning folks were asking me "Why aren't you more excited about this repeal finally passing?!? It's a historic day for gay rights!" What I found it difficult to articulate is that while I'm thrilled that this one issue -- which advances the rights of maybe 2% of the gay population -- finally made some progress, I'm more concerned about gay rights as a whole. Get back to me when we're allowed to get married, and I'll show you excited.
Well said.
Excellent points made. To Anonymous: I believe that "what was traded" was the extension on Bush tax cuts. I think the Start Treaty will eventually pass because of that too.
This post is poetry.
And although I'm glad that DADT will be buried, a lot of transgender activists are making sure to remind us cis folks that transgender people are still heavily discriminated against in the military and everywhere else in the US.
So... yeah, I agree, that's one hell of a comma.
Any behavior that varies from the norm to this degree will be "discriminated" against.
Anonymous...take a look around you, son. The "norm" ain't what you think it is and it never has been.
As a hetero, twenty-year veteran of the Air Force who served during DADT, about damn time!
@2nd Anon: Being able to seriously put quotation marks around an issue that ruins and ends lives on a daily basis is a great example of corrupt and undeserved privilege.
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