This past week at the State of the Union address, President Obama took his first real step towards the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, the policy that allows gays and lesbians to serve in the military, and defend their country as long as they keep secret their sexual preferences and lifestyle. However, a year has passed since Obama was inaugurated, and we're just now getting him to vocalize his support for an issue that he campaigned on, and no doubt garned a lot of support from those in the gay and lesbian community.
Why so long? I realize that the cliche "easier said than done" applies here, and it's way easier to speak about what you want to do, and changes you want to make, then it is to actually implement them. And I think a lot of the criticism that Obama gets for his inaction on this subject, is because he seems to not even give a damn about it. That's all well and good, but when you campaign on an issue, you're expected to give a damn about it.
The main roadblock to repealing this, is the fact that many in the military are uncomfortable with the idea of being in close living quarters with an openly gay soldier, which I don't understand. The only reason I can come up with for why soldiers would be uncomfortable with this, is a very cliched and ignorant one: That they're afraid that the other soldier would develop feelings for one of them, and/or make sexual advances.
Stop and think about that for a minute. Do you realize what they are saying? They're saying that their opinions of homosexuals are that they are such sexual deviants with such an uncontrollable sexual appetite, that if they happened to like another soldier, who was straight, that they wouldn't be able to help themselves, and that they would try to force themselves on the straight soldier.
Or at the very least, they would make their feelings known, and the straight soldier would be uncomfortable being around someone who they felt were "checking them out".
Is this not the very definition of "homophobic"? When the phrase "homophobic" is thrown around to describe the anti-gay movement, many people, particularly those Christian Evangelicals who are against gay marriage or gay rights get offended. They say that there not being homophobic, they just don't like it. The whole "hate the sin, love the sinner" thing.
However that's not true. They are AFRAID. They're AFRAID that if homosexuals are allowed to marry, that somehow that will destroy the "Sanctity" of marriage, that we obviously have now. However, that's kinda strange to feel that way, considering how many straight marriages end in divorce every year, how many straight couples are marrying and then getting divorced several months later, or how many straight people have multiple marriages and divorces.
Or they're AFRAID of the supposed detriment to society that giving gay couples the same rights afforded to straight couples would cause.
Or they are AFRAID that letting gay and lesbian soldiers in the military would lead to these obvious horndogs to be unable to control themselves, and force themselves onto the straight soldiers.
Or maybe they are AFRAID that the gay soldiers will not be able to bring themselves to shoot a cute terrorist?
Bottom line, the general consensus by many of the anti-gay crowd is that homosexuality is no different than pedophilia, incest and child molestations. Which is extremely offensive and flat out ignorant. There's no data to suggest this, although those on the anti-gay bandwagon have no problems pretending that there is.
Eventually DADT will be repealed, and supporters of the repeal are being told that it could be a few years before it's being implemented. Right now is the feeling out stage, so to speak, where they go about trying to figure out just how to do this, while we're in two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Hopefully this can be done in a way that the next Republican President and Congress, doesn't come along and just undo everything that Obama does.
It's interesting that the Pledge of Allegience that children recite at the beginning of each day contains the words "...and liberty and justice for all", and yet this country does NOT have liberty and justice for all. If it's not separate rules and guidelines for homosexuals, then it's laws that are used to arrest and prosecute them, such as the sodomy laws that were designed to go after prostitutes. If it's not that, it's seemingly different laws for white people than there is for black people. Different rules for rich people and poor people.
Will we ever truly be a country that embodies those six words that we hear so much that we take for granted? Even the optimist in me has a hard time believing that we will. I think people's prejudices are too deeply ingrained for this to be something that will change overnight.
My wish is that someday in the future, our future generations will be able to look back and wonder at the time that everyone didn't get treated equally, and wonder just how that ever happened. Print this post
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