Senator David Vitter (R-LA) on DADT

I recently contacted both of my state senators on the upcoming vote to repeal DADT in this lame duck session of the 111th Congress.  Here is what Vitter (R-LA) had to say:

Dear Mr. Winfield, Thank you for contacting me in opposition to the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy.  I appreciate hearing from you on this important issue. The "don't ask, don't tell" policy prohibits individuals who are openly homosexual from serving in the military.  Service members may not engage in these activities, and the military is barred from asking a service member about his or her sexual orientation.  This has been official military policy since it was implemented by President Clinton in 1994. As you may know, the proposed Military Readiness Enhancement Act would repeal the Department of Defense's current "don't ask, don't tell" policy, and President Obama has stated that he would sign the bill into law if Congress passes it.  I believe that any actions taken by Congress and the President should be done in the best interest of the military.  The proposed legislation remains controversial, and Congress and the President should listen carefully to military leaders when trying to determine the best course of action on this issue.  Please rest assured I will keep your thoughts in mind should changes to this policy come before the U.S. Senate. Again, thank you for sharing your thoughts on this important issue.  Please do not hesitate to contact me in the future about other issues important to you.

Sincerely, Senator David Vitter United States Senator

Sounds like we can't count on him.  I'm really considering calling him, but I think that may actually be a waste of my time.  If I don't here from Mary Landrieu (D-LA) soon, I'm going to call her.

Your Right as a Second-Class Citizen

I recently saw a statistic that had me floored and shot my blood pressure through the roof:  more than thirty percent of LGBT voters voted republican.  I understand the anger with democrats, I understand the anger with President Obama, I understand the anger and frustration with Harry Reid, I, however, do not understand taking focusing that anger into an energy that helped to elect candidates who make it part of their platform to attack, demonize, and force a view of inferiority onto LGBT persons.  I recently listened to the responses of some of the LGBT persons who supported the GOP on the Michelangelo Signorile Show and again was shocked at some of the self-centered answers from these idiots.

All of the excuses, yes excuses, not reasons, for voting against their rights revolved around how the government was spending the taxpayers’ money.   Money!  Greediness, as it has been since the Reagan administration, has helped the republicans retain office election cycle after election cycle and this cycle was no different.  This, however, is appalling because that thirty percent of LGBT Americans voted not only against their rights, but also against the rights of every other LGBT person in the nation.  Now, we can say farewell to a repeal of DOMA, good-bye to the implementation of ENDA, and now DADT repeal is in jeopardy.  The rights of a minority, not just any minority, our minority, which were within legislative grasp now, as Congressman Barney Frank put it so eloquently, has a “zero chance” of coming to fruition now that we have lost the most LGBT-issue progressive White House and Congress in history.  This greedy LGBT republican-voting electorate helped to remove the gavel from the hand of the most effective progressive House Speaker and champion of voting of LGBT rights in modern history.  These self-absorbed idiots took their childish hissy fits to the polls and killed any chance of us gaining any of these rights within the near future.

Many of the GOP-voting LGBT callers kept telling Signorile that they were not interested in getting married, or taking advantage of many of the rights for which so many of us are fighting.  I like to look a little deeper into what getting rights mean for our community.  It is not about whether or not we as individuals take advantage of and utilize all of the rights that we should already enjoy across the board, but what gaining these rights will mean for our community and its members.  So long as we are not treated like everyone else with respect to the law, we are effectively seen as second-class citizens not only in the eyes of the law, but also in the eyes of anti-LGBT bigots or just other non-LGBT persons.  Blacks were viewed as second-class citizens long after slavery was abolished because of Jim Crow laws and the Caste System.  LGBT Americans voting republican is comparable to blacks voting known Ku Klux Klan members to run legislative offices during the Jim Crow era, or Jews voting for the Nazi party during the holocaust.

So long as we are second-class citizens within this nation, discrimination is harder to fight, bullying is harder to tame, teen suicides will be harder to curtail; we as a community will fail if we fall into of a habit of voting against ourselves with passion, instead of using that same passion to fight for our rights.  My mom asked me why are LGBT-rights so much more important to me than issues like jobs and the economy, especially because I haven’t been able to find a job in my field, even though I’ve graduated over a year ago.  My answer to her question:  “Mom, I understand your concern, but until the day I become equal to you, dad, and every other hetero-American, my becoming a first-class citizen within this ‘free’ nation is, for me, the utmost important issue every time I cast a ballot.”  After asking me this during every election since I was first able to vote in 2004, this finally answered her nagging inquiry, just as I hope it answers your questions about my methods--why I wrote this essay.  As you read this, please know this is America, and you as an American citizen, have the right to voice your opinion and anger with passion, or passive-aggressiveness, at the ballot box.  Nevertheless, you must also remember, that although this is a right that is at the same par with heterosexual Americans, you are not entirely free in this “free” nation, this is just one of your many rights as a second-class citizen, but do remember the rights you do not have when you exercise this right.

Opportunity to Stop the Loss

In a time of military conflict, fears of the next 9/11, and large amounts of loss of life in relation to this conflict, our biggest threat to national security has been made clear over seventeen years ago.  The continuation of this threat is clear as all of our GOP and certain Democratic lawmakers seem to ignore the obvious fact that it is false.  This false threat is, as you can guess, is allowing gay men and lesbians to serve openly in our military.

When the Democrats took control in the sweeping victory that was the 2008 presidential election, they had the opportunity to move swiftly on a major issue that affects not only the gay and lesbian soldiers serving, but their families, as well.  President Obama made five promises to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) community.  Of these promises, he has kept one and broken one.  Forty-percent of these promises have stalled because of the unlikely chance they will be put up to a vote before the end of the lame duck session, before the GOP takes control of the House and begin their tirade of oppression once more.  That leaves just one promise left to keep, the promise Obama made to the LGBT community and soldiers serving in our military:  to repeal the ineffective, demeaning, wasteful, and demoralizing policy dubbed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT).

The President has asked the LGBT community and soldiers for patience to remove this policy at a less disruptive pace, now look where our patience got us.  This policy is not still in effect because of combat effectiveness or military readiness, it is in effect because of bigots and liars, like John McCain, the rest of the GOP lawmakers, and even some of the self-titled Democratic lawmakers, who are anti-gay to the core.  I use the title “lawmaker” because the majority of the public, conservative democrats and republicans included, agree with the Joint Chiefs of Staff that this policy is discriminatory, a waste of money and should become part of our shameful history, not our shameful present.  For a party elected on the platform of representing all Americans, why is that at least 70% of these GOP lawmakers failed to vote in favor of repeal?  The simple answer:  these lawmakers are anti-gay bigots who are too scared to own up to that fact and instead choose to hide behind the veil of religion!

President Obama knew this, as he was a lawmaker fighting for LGBT rights before he became the leader of the “Free” World.  This fact is both saddening and astounding because of the slow-as-molasses-don’t-worry-we’ll-get-to-it approach he and the Democratic leadership decided to take.  What is more astounding is how Obama was handed an excellent opportunity to end this policy as early as September of this year by issuing a stop-loss clause to kill the discriminatory policy after a federal judge ruled it unconstitutional.  Instead, our fearless leader opted to shrivel like a coward, bend to the bigoted will of the anti-gay lawmakers, and challenge the ruling after the issuance of an injunction.  Although the Obama administration has won an indefinite stay on the injunction while it prepares to appeal the ruling that stated DADT unconstitutional, it is still not too late.  I do not expect there to be enough time to vote on DADT repeal with the timeframe Harry Reid has set for this lame duck, nor do I expect the Senate to allow the lame duck to end without passing the 2011 NDAA.  This means that DADT repeal language will more than likely be stripped from the bill.

It is still not too late to drop the appeal and let the ruling stand, which I doubt the Obama administration will.  President Obama, you are dropping the ball on your gay and lesbian constituents and the polls have proven that!  It is time for a good deed, Mr. President; it is time to deliver before you lose the constituency forever.  Mr. President, this is not an opportunity lost, but merely an opportunity to stop the unnecessary loss.

Compromise This!

As we heard from the President himself, compromise is on the table.  This is a great idea, as without it, the country could face a costly gridlock as legislation halts completely and indefinitely on the Hill.  The test Obama will have to face is figuring out how and when to draw the line on such compromises without stoking the fire of the visceral anger of the American people responsible for ousting his legislative backbone within the House and Senate.

We have already seen Obama answer a very important question in this compromise test, which is what to do about the Bush-era tax cuts?  His answer:  continue the tax cuts for everyone, with the exception of the Americans who make the top two-percent of its income.  This is the correct answer and a good way to force an unlikely compromise between that of the GOP and the tea partiers who help to put them in office.  The GOP can argue all they like, but the Democrats can counter with exposing them for who they truly are, pawns of the rich and corporate.  I am willing to bet arguing to nearly double the amount of money spent (an extra $700-billion) to basically give extra money to the wealthy will not sit well with their new electorate who demanded, at the polls, fiscal responsibility from our government.

If played well, the Democrats will probably retake the White House and at least one chamber of Congress in 2012.  This sweeping wave of red across the country represents change, a new direction for America.  Now is the time for Democrats to connect with the American people and tout their record of good, but they must do so without arrogance.  The schism the Republican Party is creating within itself will soon mean a creation of a third party of politics, or a slow extinction of the far-right politics of the GOP.  This is the excellent opportunity needed for the Democrats to expose the GOP’s true nature.  Capitalizing on this opportunity can be dangerously challenging, however, for the Democratic Party, for choosing to put politics before policy can be detrimental to their party, as well as the GOP.