Do Tell: The High Cost of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell

Capt. Joan Darrah, now retired, served the United States almost 30 years as a naval intelligence specialist. But it was only on Sept. 11, 2001, that she fully absorbed the cruelty of what the U.S. military demanded of her.

“I was at the Pentagon bus stop,” Darrah told a congressional committee recently. ” … The space I had been in seven minutes earlier was completely destroyed. Seven of my co-workers were killed. The reality is that if I had been killed, my partner of 11 years would have been the last to know, as I had not dared to list her in my emergency contact information.”

Darrah’s testimony and that of other veterans brought flesh and blood intensity to the first congressional review of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in 15 years.

Get the rest of this story at cron.com.

Republican Fights Against Don’t Ask Don’t Tell

Rep. Chris Shays, Connecticut’s lone Republican member of the congressional delegation, got some press yesterday for leaping into the debate over gay men and women serving in the military. At a hearing of the House armed-services subcommittee on personnel (examining the effectiveness of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy for the first time in years) Shays apparently lit into a woman who argued against allowing openly gay people into the military.

Read what he had to say at blogs courant.com.

Democrats Seeking to Repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell

Democrats are preparing next year to lift the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” ban on open gays in the military, an uneasy culture-war compromise instituted under the last Democratic administration, should Sen. Barack Obama win the presidency.

Rep. Ellen Tauscher, the Walnut Creek Democrat, said a hearing today by a House Armed Services subcommittee is aimed at educating Congress and the public in preparation for a full-scale push to end the policy, first imposed in 1993 under President Bill Clinton, in the next Congress. By then, Democrats expect to have won the White House and to have expanded their House and Senate majorities.

Find out more at sfgate.com. or here on gayagenda.com

Don’t Ask Don’t Tell - Don’t Make A Difference

Congress should repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law because the presence of gays in the military is unlikely to undermine the ability to fight and win, according to a new study released by a California-based research center. The study was conducted by four retired military officers, including the three-star Air Force lieutenant general who in early 1993 was tasked with implementing President Clinton’s policy that the military stop questioning recruits on their sexual orientation. Read more

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