Just a few minutes ago the U.S. Senate voted 57-40 to continue to allow our armed forces to be held hostage by homophobia by declining to move forward on debate on the bill which includes a repeal of DADT (Don't Ask Don't Tell).
As a military mom I'm disgusted that my son and other American sons and daughters are failing to get the full support of our elected officials because they are too busy playing politics with funding bills to do the job we elected them to do.
As a priest and pastor I'm outraged that the religious right continues to deploy weapons of mass disinformation in the service of anti-gay bigotry and discrimination. It is an outright lie that the religious conscience of our military chaplains will in any way be compromised by the repeal of DADT and yet it is a fiction that continues to fuel the campaign to force gays and lesbians in the military to choose between telling the truth and serving their country.
I just checked. "Do not bear false witness" is still one of the Ten Commandments -- and yet those purporting to support "traditional values" are not only lying about the impact of repealing DADT they are perpetuating a system that rewards those who lie about their sexual orientation.
No wonder Jesus wept.
Well, the traditional values I claim include Jesus' promise that "the truth will set you free" -- and the truth is it's time for ALL Americans to stand up, speak out and refuse to allow our armed forces to be held hostage by homophobia for a moment longer! The truth is repealing DADT is the right thing to do and now is the right time to do it. And the truth is now that the Senate has failed to act, we need our President to step up and make it happen.
Rabbi Abraham Heschel wisely said, “Patience, a quality of holiness may be sloth in the soul when associated with the lack of righteous indignation.” The time for patience is over. The time to channel our righteous indignation is now.
As a military mom I'm disgusted that my son and other American sons and daughters are failing to get the full support of our elected officials because they are too busy playing politics with funding bills to do the job we elected them to do.
As a priest and pastor I'm outraged that the religious right continues to deploy weapons of mass disinformation in the service of anti-gay bigotry and discrimination. It is an outright lie that the religious conscience of our military chaplains will in any way be compromised by the repeal of DADT and yet it is a fiction that continues to fuel the campaign to force gays and lesbians in the military to choose between telling the truth and serving their country.
I just checked. "Do not bear false witness" is still one of the Ten Commandments -- and yet those purporting to support "traditional values" are not only lying about the impact of repealing DADT they are perpetuating a system that rewards those who lie about their sexual orientation.
No wonder Jesus wept.
Well, the traditional values I claim include Jesus' promise that "the truth will set you free" -- and the truth is it's time for ALL Americans to stand up, speak out and refuse to allow our armed forces to be held hostage by homophobia for a moment longer! The truth is repealing DADT is the right thing to do and now is the right time to do it. And the truth is now that the Senate has failed to act, we need our President to step up and make it happen.
Rabbi Abraham Heschel wisely said, “Patience, a quality of holiness may be sloth in the soul when associated with the lack of righteous indignation.” The time for patience is over. The time to channel our righteous indignation is now.
Click here to contact the White House and send a message to President Obama to use his authority to end the military discharges immediately and free our military from being held hostage by homophobia. Ready. Set. GO!
12 comments:
Get the tax rates continued, UC continued to 99 weeks, and the payroll tax reduction passed and DADT gets repealed. Senator Reid knows that, maybe he is submarining the effort on purpose.
For decades young men & women have made a very personal sacrifice and very meaningful decision to join US Military so that our USA interests will be guarded, & we remain the #1 Military Power in the world.
These young people [and all career military] knowingly put themselves in harms way and accept the extraordinary pressure their job demands, including close living quarters, and life & death scenarios. And they made ALL those above decisions based on a Military who discharge openly gay soldiers.
They deserve respect -- not your name calling. Do you think it's fair to change it up on them now?
And -- according to the Pentagon's own study -- over 70% of them say having gay or lesbian colleagues is not an issue ... a much higher percentage than agreed that integrating the military was a good idea under Truman. And that over 70% includes my son who proudly serves on active duty as a Blackhawk helicopter crew chief -- with tours of duty in both Iraq & Afghanistan -- and when asked whether it was time for DADT to go replied "F---, yes!"
I couldn't have said it better myself.
I'd be surprised if DADT gets repealed any time soon. Repealing DADT would eventually have to lead to a repeal of DOMA. Everyone knows this. It has nothing to do with serving the country.
Of course it doesn't. And the marriage equality movement has nothing to do with living happily ever after with the love of your life and equal protection for your family. And ENDA isn't really about job discrimination. LGBT people aren't really interested in anything other than the juggernaut of the gay agenda which is all about undermining western civilization, destroying traditional family values, threatening your marriage and ending the world as we know it.
Did I miss anything?
It doesn't threaten my marriage, I'm not that insecure. Just keep that mess out of the Church (I know...too late). That's my only gripe about it. I could care less what you do in the privacy of your own home. If people would have tried to make it purely a secular issue, maybe there may have been more success with it, but instead a few once prominent denominations are ripped apart for it. And you wonder why attitudes towards your LGBT community are so negative.
Another turd in the punchbowl, I see.
"Just keep that in the privacy of your own home and I don't care what you do."
So for young service people living in the closet, they can't DP or marry their beloved, can't list them as next of kin, can't hug them goodbye when they ship out or greet when they return...all to keep old folks suffering the "ick" factor happy.
I've met a number of young men in the Navy and Marines (my step-daughter loves a boy in a uniform ;-) and every one of them has known gay guys, and not a one has had a problem with it. As the memorable quote from the Special Forces soldier in the Pentagon report:
“We have a gay guy [in the unit]. He’s big, he’s mean, and he kills lots of bad guys. No one cared that he was gay.”
And the British and the Israelis have no problem with a fully integrated military. Both storied fighting forces.
Though Martin is right, if DADT goes, then DOMA becomes unsustainable--at least the federal recognition part.
Meanwhile, as to the anger about bringing "that" into the church, I quote Gene Robinson:
'It's an amazing thing and I often say it in speeches: you can preach a judgmental and punitive God and no one seems to mind, but if you preach a God who is too merciful, too forgiving, too loving, then there are all kinds of awful consequences.''
God is merciful and forgiving! Besides the WBC cult I never heard anyone else say otherwise. But where exactly does one draw lines in the sand when certain groups of people want to erase them all? Exactly how far will you go with lax-ed moral stances? If you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything. And IT, that was my only point I was trying to make. Repealing DADT would mean an almost inevitable repeal of DOMA, and that is the real reason why some folks, including McCain are so dead against it, even though they won't say it. What does that have to do with serving the country? NOTHING! And that was my only point.
It's hardly surprising that this sort of thing happens when we victim ourselves by allowing merchants of death, degradation, lies and despair like LGMarshall and MartinT. to have a public forum to abuse us.
Far from being fighters, we're like the weak child who keeps giving away our lunch so the bullies will be our "friends."
Martin ...
McCain being "dead set against" repealing DADT because it "will lead to the repeal of DOMA" is a perfect example of the irrationality of the irrational fear of homosexuality ... AKA homophobia ... they label so many homophobes doth protest too much.
If we get over being afraid of our homosexual neighbor then we move to the place where we can love them as ourselves. And serve with them in the military. And let them live happily-ever-after next door
to us with the same civil protections for their families as we have.
I reject utterly -- once again -- that giving LGBT Americans equal rights and responsibilities as citizens of this great nation does anything other than strenthen it. And I resent -- once again -- the the insulting argument that same sex relationships reflect "laxed morals."
I do agree with one statement:
"If you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything."
And we do. Stand for something. Several somethings. Liberty and justice for all. Respecting the dignity of every human being. And telling the truth that will set us free.
And the truth is sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Repealing DADT is about allowing gays and lesbians to serve their country openly in the military. Marriage equality is about gay and lesbian families who deserve equal protection from the Constitution that guarantees it to all American citizens. That's "the gay agenda" in a nutshell.
It's what we're standing for so we don't fall for the red herring BS of homophobic propaganda that continues to fuel the fires of division in this country, this communion and this church.
Thanks for stopping by. Always got to get the blood moving first thing in the morning. Now I'm going to go get my gay Christmas lights out of my gay attic and hang them on the gay eaves of my gay house and maybe get some gay laundry done on my gay day off.
I have to hand it to you Susan. I don't know how you can stomach some of these comments. So sad. Matthew
Quote:
"I do not think that any self-respecting radical in history would have considered advocating people’s rights to get married, join the Army, and earn a living as a terribly inspiring revolutionary platform."
(Barney Frank.)
you go, Susan. We hung our gay Christmas lights on our Gay Christmas tree which we chose with our emphatically non-gay son, who is helping us decorate it while we listen to Christmas carols (not gay, are they?), and of course we will go to church tomorrow and go gay Christmas shopping afterwards for gay gifts for our mostly non-gay friends.
Oh, the horror!
Do you think our cat is gay too?
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