On the day that same sex marriage was allowed in Massachusetts, ten thousand traditional families in Nebraska spontaneously divorced. No, that didn’t really happen. On the day that same sex marriage was allowed in New York, the entire state of Kansas broke off and fell into the ocean. That didn’t happen either.
This month, on September 20th, the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy will have come to an end and gay and lesbian patriotic American service members will be free to serve openly in pride. What will happen? Not much. Not much? Just the end of one hundred years of discrimination; just the beginning of freedom for patriotic lesbian and gay Americans who want to volunteer to serve their nation in Pride.
What will happen? Will devout Marines suddenly loose their moral fiber, burst into tears, forget how to fight, and question their patriotism? Not bloody likely.
Will thousands of service members suddenly come out? Please, our finest citizen service members who trained and fought together side by side have few secrets between them. There are not likely to be many surprises, just simply freedom and camaraderie.
Maybe
there
might
be a
few
conversations
like
this:
Corporal
Jones
to
Sergeant
Smith,
“Uh,
hey
Sarg,
I
dunno
if
you
ever
noticed,
but
I
just
want
you
to
know
that
I
happen
to
be
gay.”
Sgt.
Smith
to
Cpl
Jones:
“Oh
yeah?
Well,
I
dunno
if
you
ever
noticed,
but
I
happen
to
be
black.
We’re
both
still
Marines,
and
we
still
need
to
pull
the
f@#*in’
spider
gear
out
of
that
tank.
Oh,
and
bring
your
boyfriend
to
the
barbeque
at
my
house
on
Sunday.”
Cpl
Jones,
“oh
cool,
what
are
we
having?”
Sgt
Smith,
“The
best
barbequed
ribs
this
side
of
South
Carolina!”
Cpl
Jones,
“You
mean
pork
ribs?”
Sgt
Smith,
“yah
of
course”
Cpl
Jones,
“well
my
boyfriend
is
Jewish.”
Sgt
Smith,
“Oh
shit,
well
we’ll
get
some
beef
ribs
for
him.”
Cpl
Jones,
“I
was
just
kidding,
he’s
not
Jewish.”
Sgt
Smith,
“Wha!
You
Fa...
aaah
Asshole,
go
pull
that
spider
gear!”
The above is NOT from one of those DoD Powerpoint troop training programs. If today’s Pentagon training is anything like what I had 40 years ago, its dead dry, dead serious, and deadly boring. I have the sense that they did a good job with this; but a little humor might have made the message more memorable. The message: Equality is here to stay, get it through your head.
Equality? Well no, not exactly. Gay Folk will no longer have to hold hands and jump over a broom together to get married; but our marriages and partnerships and civil unions will not be recognized by any federal entity including our American armed forces. This is because the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), enacted during the same era as DADT, is still the law and it prohibits the federal government from recognizing any same sex marriages. So, under Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, the law was that “you can be gay but you can’t tell anyone, and you cannot be married to a same sex partner.” Now, with the end of DADT, you can be openly gay, you can get married, but your marriage will not be recognized.
Here we go again! You can get married, but your marriage will not be recognized? That sounds just as idiotically unfair as DADT was. What kind of bureaucrats came up with that? Maybe there should be a law that makes it unconstitutional to make contradictory laws that limit the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of Americans. Unconstitutional? Its in the Declaration of Independence adopted on July 4th 1776!