Gays serve in militaries around the world, although several countries (including the U.S. "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy) prohibit service by openly gay soldiers and sailors.
The Advocate, Posted: 6/2/2009, 7:59 PM White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Tuesday that President Barack Obama's nominee for secretary of the Army, Republican representative John McHugh, agrees with the president that "don't ask, don't tell" should be changed. "I think it's obvious from those statements and other statements that Congressman McHugh has made that he and the president are in agreement on changing the policy they both don't think is working for this country right now," Gibbs said in response to a question from The Advocate about the congressman's past remarks. "It's a priority of the president's and I think, for any number of reasons, we have a nominee that we hope will be confirmed quickly and will have -- ah, based on his background and experience -- will help to improve the lives of the Army." McHugh is the ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee. During last summer's hearings on the military's gay ban, McHugh expressed a desire to see a review of the policy and frustration that the Department of Defense and military leadership had not been more open to addressing the issue.
New York Times, Posted: 4/17/2009, 8:36 AM Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates made clear on Thursday that any
repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law would have to be
undertaken slowly, and suggested that it might not happen at all. “If we do it,’’ Mr. Gates told reporters on his plane enroute to
Rhode Island, “it’s important that we do it right, and very
carefully.’’
Mr. Gates was expanding on his answer to an officer’s question
earlier in the day at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pa., where the
Defense secretary was asked about the policy that allows gay men and
lesbians to serve in the military as long as they keep their sexual
orientation secret. “Everybody in this room knows that this is a
complex and difficult problem,’’ Mr. Gates responded. Then he noted that President Harry S. Truman had signed an executive
order integrating the armed services in 1948 “and that it was five
years before the process was completed.’’
Stars and Stripes, Posted: 3/16/2009, 3:45 PM Takia Mitchell said she served openly as a lesbian for two years in South Korea without ever hearing a complaint from her commanders. After less than a year of serving secretly in New York, her new commanders forced her out of the Army under the don’t ask, don’t tell rules. "The Army was my life," she said. "It gave me purpose. And at first it gave me a place to thrive. But by the end I was truly an Army of one, singled out because I was gay." Mitchell was one of a dozen speakers at Friday’s rally in support of legislation which would drop regulations barring homosexuals from openly serving in the military. About 200 supporters attended the event, chanting "Freedom to Serve" at the speakers’ prompting. Organizers from the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network hope this year, with a Congress controlled by Democrats and a president who has publicly stated his opposition to the policy, they can muster enough votes do away with the limits on homosexual servicemembers.
Manila Standard, Posted: 3/4/2009, 6:19 AM The Philippines military and police tolerate homosexuals within their ranks—as long as they are not openly gay, officials said yesterday. Armed Forces Chief Alexander Yano said the military was open to gay recruits as long as they didn’t show their tendencies. “As of now we don’t have a policy on the admittance of soldier candidates who are gay,” Yano said. Brig. Gen. Gaudencio Pangilinan, civil relations chief, added: “If you
are qualified, I guess we are not biased against the third sex.” A spokesman for the National Police said the same was true of law enforcement. “The Philippine National Police does not discriminate against men who
are gays and women who are lesbians entering the service after rigorous
mental and physical examinations,” said Director German Doria, chief of
the agency’s community relations group. “What we are against is their open display of their being lesbians or homosexuals.”
Politico, Posted: 3/3/2009, 2:14 PM It is precisely the sort of knife fight no president wants to get into, especially in his first 100 days. But it seems that President Barack Obama is about to get dragged down the same dark alley as Bill Clinton when he was forced to confront the highly charged issue of gays in the military early in his term. On Monday, buoyed by a stronger Democratic majority in Congress, Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher (D-Calif.) will introduce legislation to overturn the ban against homosexuals serving openly in the military, a Tauscher aide said. Clinton’s handling of the issue was widely condemned, and the entire fiasco became a textbook example of the sort of avoid-at-all-cost political controversy that can seriously undermine a new president. The issue is risky for Obama, too, political analysts said, threatening to galvanize social conservatives and other political opponents.
Boston Globe, Posted: 2/2/2009, 2:06 PM The Obama administration is telling the Pentagon and gay-rights
advocates that it will have to study the implications for national
security and enlist more support in Congress before trying to overturn
the so-called "don't ask, don't tell" law and allow gays to serve
openly in the military, according to people involved in the discussions. They said Obama, who pledged during the campaign to overturn the
law, does not want to ask lawmakers to do so until the military has
completed a comprehensive assessment of the impact that such a move
would have on military discipline. Then, the president hopes to be able
to make a case to members of both parties that overturning the 1993 law
would be in the best interest of national security.Obama is
hoping to avoid the missteps of the Clinton administration when it
tried to open the ranks to gays and lesbians, only to be confronted by
fierce resistance from lawmakers and commanders.
ANI News Service, Posted: 1/20/2009, 10:31 AM A bisexual army cop has been relieved off her duties after it was discovered that she was working as a 100 pounds an hour hooker from her barracks. Lance Corporal Rebecca Smith, 21, who had been given the task of enforcing discipline among squaddies, was caught by a senior NCO using a military computer to advertise her wares to men and women. Upon further scrutiny, it was discovered that Smith was leading a double life as a 100 pounds-an-hour prostitute called Roxi Llewelyn, and that she had made thousands by visiting punters at their homes or in hotels. Smith, who was based at Provost Barracks in the garrison town of Aldershot, Hants, offered a full range of sex acts from 15 minute quickies to spanking and bondage.
Time, Posted: 12/19/2008, 3:27 PM The Reserve Officers Training Corpe was kicked off most of the Ivy League campuses (or made an extracurricular activity) during the antiwar protests of the 1960s. But the Yale Political Union concluded this fall that the university ought to bring ROTC back to campus, a move some students said would help the school live up to its motto: "For God, For Country, and For Yale." While many of the objections are based on the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays, op-eds and letters to the editor in the Yale Daily News — which endorsed the idea — argued that allowing ROTC back would encourage debate over the policy, rather than indicate an endorsement of it. At Harvard, meanwhile, where students can participate in the ROTC program at neighboring MIT, the undergraduate council in April passed a bill — jointly presented by the college Republicans and Democrats — called "Supporting ROTC," urging the school to list ROTC courses on students' transcripts and say that it "is proud of [students'] service to the nation" in its official description of ROTC. But nowhere is the debate more pronounced than at left-leaning Columbia University.
New York Times, Posted: 12/16/2008, 3:21 AM Admiral Mullen, who was selected by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates
for a two-year term, has been on the job for a year. Come January, he
will face perhaps the biggest challenge of his career — pivoting from
one commander-in-chief to another, in the middle of two wars. More quietly, he has also had initial conversations with his top
commanders about potential changes in the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law
that allows gay men and lesbians to serve in the military as long as
they keep their sexual orientation secret. President-elect Barack Obama has taken a
strong stand against the law as a moral issue, although his team has
signaled that he will not push for repeal in the early months of his
administration to avoid the kind of blowup that engulfed President Bill Clinton
when he sought to lift an outright ban on gay men and lesbians in the
military in his first days in office. “The president-elect’s been pretty clear that he wants to
address this issue,” Admiral Mullen said in the interview. “And so I am
certainly mindful that at some point in time it could come.” A friend
of Admiral Mullen said that he had begun to think about practical
implications like housing, but Admiral Mullen said there had been no
formal planning or task forces on the issue.
San Diego Union-Tribune, Posted: 12/7/2008, 4:07 PM Still smarting from the unsuccessful same-sex marriage battle in California, some gay-rights activists are turning to another front: repealing the so-called “don't ask, don't tell” policy that prevents gays and lesbians from serving openly in the U.S. military. Last month, President-elect Barack Obama and nearly 30 new congressional Democrats were elected, giving activists hope that the 15-year-old policy can be overturned. “I think the election of Barack Obama is a sea change in terms of moving the issue forward,” said Aubrey Sarvis, executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, which is dedicated to ending the policy and assisting military personnel affected by it. “I think 'don't ask, don't tell' can be repealed in the next Congress.” Democrat Obama repeatedly advocated ending the policy during his campaign. But Obama – mindful of the uproar that former President Bill Clinton caused by raising the issue of gays in the military just days into his presidency – has also signaled that he intends to take his time to build consensus for a change within the military.
Politico, Posted: 5/26/2010, 3:01 PM
QUICK LOOK:By MAJ. PETER KEES HAMSTRA & LEIF OHLSON & LT. COM. CRAIG JONES: As openly gay officers with decades of combined service experience in the British, Dutch and Swedish armed forces, we are closely watching U.S. developments around the repeal of "Don't ask, don't tell." We were just in Washington at a Brookings Institution/Palm Center conference, where representatives from the world's militaries discussed this matter. Though we maintain a respect for the American people, their military and their political process, we share a sense of puzzlement — and a sort of shock — at the rhetoric we heard surrounding "Don't ask, don't tell." As Congress prepares to vote on this, we hope our international perspective can be of some value. The U.S. armed forces are the world's most formidable, with an unrivaled might and a readiness to accept worldwide deployments to engage in a range of military conflicts that no other nation views with the same sort of international responsibility. Yet it is also true that U.S. military power depends, in most cases, on an international coalition of partners. Members of Congress don't always seem to appreciate that America's allies are put off in serious ways by the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy. For example, units of our own or other armed forces have refused to deploy in some joint operations with U.S. forces because gay service members would not work with the Americans — for fear of hostile reactions.
Washington Post, Posted: 4/20/2010, 8:03 PM
QUICK LOOK:BY JONATHAN CAPEHART: President Obama flew out to California to help the sagging reelection effort of Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and came face-to-face with frustration over efforts to repeal the ban on gay men and lesbians serving openly in the military. He was interrupted a couple of times during his rah-rah for Boxer, in fact. Now, here's my frustration: These same protesters don't bother to interrupt fundraisers and other events for Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) or Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). With Obama out, loud and proud in his support for repeal of "don't ask don't tell," those congressional leaders are the ones who hold the key to it actually happening. And they are content to let Obama take all the heat. Hammering away at Obama on this issue is understandable. During the campaign, he promised to do away with the law that hurts the nation's military effectiveness. (I mean, how effective can the U.S. be in its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the war on terror if it's booting desperately needed Arab linguists simply because of who they are?) But I must remind my gay brothers and sisters that Obama is not king. Don't ask don't tell is an act of Congress. And it will take Congress to permanently do away with it. Gay men and lesbians are right to hold Obama's feet to the fire on this. But by continuing to ignore Pelosi and Reid, not only are they giving them a pass the leaders don't deserve, they are also slowing down a resolution to an honorable cause.
Posted: 3/26/2010, 12:06 PM
QUICK LOOK:It's been one year since Lt. Dan Choi came out of the closet very publicly to challenge the military's Don't Ask Don't Tell policy on gays in the military. An Arab linguist now facing discharge, Choi was back in the headlines last week when he showed up at a Human Rights Campaign rally featuring comedienne Kathy Griffin and, according to some, "hijacked" the event by asking those present to join him for a short two-block walk to the White House, where he handcuffed himself to the fence in a protest of civil disobedience. He spent the night in jail but was back out protesting over the weekend, joining the LGBT contingent in the large immigration rights rally on the National Mall. One year after it all started, Choi went back on Rachel Maddow's MSNBC show to talk about the latest developments in DADT repeal.
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