So. DADT, right? That whole bullshit "compromise", which is basically a sop to the activists in that DADT will be *technically* repealed, but the discharges won't actually stop unless and until the Pentagon says so along with the President and that goddamn "working group", and which does not include any actual nondiscrimination policy, meaning that DADT discharges, even if they ARE stopped by the current Pentagon and administration, can be started right back up again by a Republican administration/more conservative higher-ups at the Pentagon. What we end up with, then, is a DADT that acts like the Mexico City Policy (the ban on the U.S.'s international family-planning funding going to groups that provide abortion or references for abortion services), on then off then on then off then on then off...ping-ponging its status depending purely on which letter the POTUS has after hir name. I could write pages on this shit, and how it's not a compromise, it's a bone like the others this administration has tossed us - "Here, have an unenforceable symbolic cookie, now will you shut up and get under the bus like we told you to???" - but it's been covered plenty elsewhere. So instead, I will share this bit of WTF going down on the House floor in debate right now:
REP. TRENT FRANKS (R-AZ), on what pushing for repeal without waiting for the study's completion tells straight soldiers: "We're going to say, 'No. We don't care what you say. You can die for us on the battlefield, but you have no input into this process.'"
Um. Really? Seriously? Because that sounds oddly familiar. Why is that? Oh, that's right. BECAUSE IT'S EXACTLY WHAT YOU HOMOPHOBES HAVE BEEN SAYING TO THE LGB TROOPS WHO ARE ALREADY SERVING IN THE MILITARY, ASSHOLE! Newsflash: there are already LGB servicemembers (T, too, but they're not covered by DADT in the same way IIRC) who are and have been actively working toward repeal, and when you and your ilk keep saying "No, no, no" or even "Well, we have to study this first", you are saying to them, "We don't care what you say. You can die for us on the battlefield, but you have no input into this process."
Wow. I really think my ironymeter just broke. I cannot believe he said that with a straight face. I guess it's ok to say "You have no input" to those icky gays, but by god if you try to change anything without Straight Approval (tm) you are Oppressing The Heteros!!eleventy!
Rep Franks, please, do us all a favor and STFU.
