Senate Armed Services Committee And The Full House of Representatives Votes To End "Don't Ask, Don' Tell"

I want to congratulate Claudia Wright today, the progressive Democrat-- not to mention great, great granddaughter of Brigham Young-- running for the Utah congressional seat currently occupied by reactionary Blue Dog Jim Matheson. In the past Matheson has had the vile stench of homophobic bigotry around him. Last April he was one of 25 bigoted ConservaDems who joined their Republican allies in their attempt to kill the Hate Crimes bill. Yesterday, after an embarrassing thrashing from Utah Democrats at the party convention two weeks ago-- and at the hands of the openly gay Claudia Wright-- he stood up on the floor of the House of Representatives and made an impassioned, if implausible, speech in favor of overturning Don't Ask Don't Tell. Claudia's vigorous primary challenge forced his hand. Conversely, the vigorous primary challenge from the far right by teabagger Clayton Thidodeau saw Mary Bono Mack break with her usual pattern of supporting the large gay population of her Palm Springs-centric district. Bono Mack gave a big homophobic no vote in the hope that by throwing gays under the bus, it would save her worthless carcass in the June 8th Republican primary. This from a woman whose first assignment when taking her dead husband's seat in Congress was to be Lindsey Graham's "fag hag," play footsie with him under the Judiciary Committee table and help him come up with a lame-brained theory about how Bill Clinton should be impeached if Monica Lewinsky had had an orgasm. Last night she joined notorious homophobes like Virginia Foxx (R-NC), Trent Franks (an Arizona Republican closet case), Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Wally Herger (R-CA), Dan Lungren (R-CA) and Steve King (all-purpose Iowa hatemonger) to vote against allowing gay men and women who are serving their country honorably in the military to stop forcing themselves to live in the kinds of dark closets that have been driving gay Republicans-- from Mark Foley, Patrick McHenry and Mitch McConnell to Larry Craig and George Rekers-- dangerously insane.

Like myself, Claudia has no intention of enlisting in the military. We're both pro-peace kinds of people who don't believe in wars of aggression. We do, however, believe that all Americans who seek to serve the country by being part of the military should have an equal opportunity to do so without being discriminated against because of narrow and bigoted prejudices. Just yesterday, in fact, Claudia announced her support of Alan Grayson's bill that would end the war and the deficit, HR 5353, The War Is Making You Poor Act.

This bill would reduce the $159.3 billion of “emergency supplemental” funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from the fiscal year 2011 budget, and would instead return that money to American taxpayers, as well as allocating funds against the federal deficit. The War Is Making You Poor Act would not affect the $549 billion already budgeted to the Department of Defense to wage these wars. 

Representative Alan Grayson, a Democrat who represents Florida’s Republican-leaning 8th district, introduced the bill by saying, “Next year's budget allocates $159,000,000,000 to perpetuate the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. That's enough money to eliminate federal income taxes for the first $35,000 of every American's income. Beyond that, it leaves over $15 billion to cut the deficit.  And that's what this bill does.”
 
The War Is Making You Poor Act eliminates the federal income tax on the first $35,000 of every American’s income, using the remaining $15 billion to reduce the federal deficit.
   
Claudia Wright has signed on to the petition to pass HR 5353, and calls on Congressman Jim Matheson to join the bipartisan cosponsors of the bill: 

“Mr. Matheson announced yesterday that it is time for the rubber to meet the road, in terms of cutting government spending. I applaud that sentiment, and hope that Mr. Matheson shares my concern that we should not be giving a blank check to military contractors while working families are struggling.
 
“If the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are worth continuing, I think we should be honest enough with the American people to put that spending in the Defense budget, not hide it as an “emergency supplemental” for a nine-year-old war. But I believe that most Americans share my belief that we can no longer continue to burden our children with debt for these endless wars.”

 
According to a Washington Post poll from the beginning of this month, 52% of Americans believe the war in Afghanistan is not worth fighting.

With bitter opposition from the bigoted and homophobic Republican throwbacks led by John Boehner, Patrick Murphy's amendment to end the discriminatory and divisive policy passed 234-194, 26 homophobic Democrats crossing the aisle to vote with the Party of Hate (while 5 Republicans, Judy Biggert, Ahn Cao, Charles Djou, Ron Paul and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen voted with the Democrats to make history). Among the conservative Democrats voting no were homophobic Blue Dogs Bobbie Bright (AL), Chris Carney (PA), Travis Childers (MS), Lincoln Davis (TN), Joe Donnelly (IN), Jim Marshall (GA), Colin Peterson (MN), Mike Ross (AR), Heath Shuler (NC), Gene Taylor (MS) and the newest member of the House, who the DCCC spent over a million dollars to buy the seat for, Mark Critz of Pennsylvania.

Although all the Republican closet queens from Aaron Schock (IL), Patty McHenry (NC), Trent Franks (AZ) and Adrian Smith (NE) to Dana Rohrabacher (CA), David Dreier (CA) and Mark Kirk (IL) voted against gay people. As a gay Republican closet case Charlie Crist wanted to retain DADT. As a gay independent closet case Charlie is now supporting it. Leaving the Party of Hatred and Bigotry can be very liberating! But if they don't want to listen to Charlie-- who did, after all, abandon their crazed, shrinking party-- the GOP self-loathing closet cases should listen to California state Senator Roy Ashburn, who was caught with a young male prostitute, outed and has now changed his tune:



Amazing interview! Inevitable, though, and one that Aaron Schock should start memorizing for his moment on the big state. "My practice in my entire political career," said Ashburn, "when it came to gay issues was to prevent any kind of spotlight from being shined my way, because I was in hiding. So casting any kind of vote might, could in some way, lead to my secret being revealed. That was terrifying to me. It was paralyzing. So I cast some votes that have denied gay people of their basic, equal treatment under the law, and I'm not proud of it. I'm not going to do that again."

Tomorrow Blue America will be formally endorsing New Hampshire progressive Annie Kuster, a community activist who we talked to just before Patrick Murphy's amendment to abolish DADT was voted on.

I was proud to support the effort here in New Hampshire to make our state the 5th in the country to pass marriage equality," she told us. New Hampshire has a bipartisan tradition of believing in less government interference in people’s personal lives, and I think the rest of the country could learn something from us on this issue. As an adoption attorney I’ve been honored to help hundreds of loving couples start their own families, and I have seen firsthand the love and support that same-sex parents bring to their own families. At the federal level, it is time to end Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and thereby strengthen our military and re-assert our true American values, and I also support ending the discriminatory ‘Defense of Marriage’ Act.

If you're so moved, you can donate to Annie campaign and Claudia's campaign on the main Blue America page or, you might want to check out the more specific Replacing Homophobes In Congress page.


UPDATE: In John Boehner's Face

West Point grad Justin Coussoule has served in the U.S. Army as Boehner, a coward and a draft dodger, has been pushing wars and odious corporate-oriented foreign policies. This morning Justin took exception to Boehner's push towards gratuitous divisiveness in opposing the end of DADT. Justin:

The policy prohibiting patriotic Americans from serving in uniform based solely on sexual orientation is shameful and discriminatory. I support the amendment to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell currently before Congress and urge swift passage as a part of the Defense Appropriations Bill. The men and women of our Armed Forces are one of our country’s greatest resources. At a time when the policies of the previous Administration have stretched our military between two foreign wars, the exclusion of patriotic young Americans from uniformed service based on sexual orientation is indefensible.
 
As a former Army officer and leader of soldiers, my sole concern was military fitness and readiness. The sexual orientation of a soldier, whether gay or straight, is irrelevant on the firing range, on a road march, or on the field of battle. The ability to navigate the treacherous routes lined with IEDs in Iraq or Afghanistan is not dependent on whether a soldier is gay or straight; it is dependent on the military training and discipline found in those who volunteer to serve in our Armed Forces. By excluding those who would volunteer based solely on sexual orientation, we are preventing able and willing soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines from guaranteeing our security, defending our country, and fighting and winning our nation’s wars. 

My opponent says that “Rushing ahead with a political decision without understanding how it will impact the men and women of our Armed Forces ... is deeply irresponsible.” After 17 years of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and countless debates over the policy’s merits, how is passage of this amendment ‘rushing ahead’? Perhaps Mr. Boehner’s lack of understanding the impact on our troops is based on his own lack of personal experience in uniform. I served with men and women who I later learned were gay or lesbian; their sexual orientation had no bearing on their outstanding service to our nation, and in no way changes my view of them as honorable and selfless veterans. 
 
Deployment of our Armed Forces without a clear path to victory before the first shot is ever fired is deeply irresponsible. Buying weapons systems and equipment that the leaders in uniform have unequivocally said are unnecessary, to the detriment of the needs for more boots on the ground, is deeply irresponsible. Mr. Boehner’s implication that repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell jeopardizes our national security is deeply irresponsible. He says that he hopes “Members of Congress who care about our national security ... will stand together to stop it.” I say, Members of Congress who care about our national security must act now, and vote to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. It is a vote that will strengthen our military, expand the ranks of those willing to serve, and ultimately result in an Armed Forces more representative of the great nation that its members serve and defend so bravely everyday.