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Official: Obama to end ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’
January 14th, 2009
Even FOX News has picked it up. Obama will end DADT in “first days in office.”
GAYS CAN OPENLY SERVE!!!!
— admin
7 Responses to “Official: Obama to end ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’”
The following comments were posted by readers and were not edited by Dallas Voice. When you comment, stay on topic and treat others with respect. Posts deemed offensive will be removed.
January 14th, 2009 at 9:52 pm
CNN is reporting that the person who made this statement, incoming Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, expanded his answer today, indicating that the repeal may not happen right away.
“There are many challenges facing our nation now and the president-elect is focused first and foremost on jump-starting this economy,” Gibbs said. “So not everything will get done in the beginning but he’s committed to following through†with ending the policy against being openly gay in the military.”
You can read the full story here:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/14/obama.gays.military/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
January 15th, 2009 at 1:25 am
Everyone go back to breathing normally Press Secretary Gibbs had to clarify by saying “there are many challenges facing our nation now and the president-elect is focused first and foremost on jump-starting this economy”. Well Mr Gibbs, there are many challenges facing our GLBT community now and rest assured that Queer Liberaction will be focused first and foremost on jump-starting this president.
Golly, I sure hope it’ll be politically feasible to get some pro-Gay legislation, executive orders, or somethin’ sometime soon! Why just the other day I heard of a poor gay boy that got beat within an inch of his life and the fellahs that done it got away with a slap on the wrist ‘cus there was no hate crime legislation. I guess I’ll just have to be happy with Mr Obama’s promises and kind words for now.
January 15th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Everybody needs to quit being so selfish. This economical crisis affects all of us, including the gays. The gay marriage fight can wait until the economy is back on its feet again. I was with my first partner for 30 years when he passed and we never had a lot of the rights that we now have. I have been with my current partner for 15 years and would love to be able to marry him but you know what, married or not, we are not going to be happy if this International economic situation is not solved, and soon. I love my partner with all my heart, but our wedding can wait until the U.S. is strong again, and pray to God that Obama can pull that off.
January 15th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
I think Obama’s team can do more than one thing at a time. If they can’t then oh Jesus we are on a sinking ship!
January 15th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
Poor kids,
they wish it was 1969, or even 1989 again, when we first marched in the streets.
Now we have a seat at the table. Even in Dallas we have a lesbian sheriff, gay county clerk, and the chief executive of the county, the county judge is a gay man.
But there comes a time in history when things shift. Think how ridiculous it would be for the NAACP to protest the Obama inauguration because they felt there weren’t enough minorities in the Obama cabinet.
That would be pretty silly, right.
Well that is what people like Queer LiberAction risk doing because they possess no context to place their concerns in. They want to be a permanent victim and pretend like we are stuck in the 1980’s.
But it is 2009. And judging Obama in a vacuum, void of any history will only lead to disappointment by holding unrealistic expectations for an Obama presidency. And thus we can continue to be the victims forever because no one will ever satisfy us completely.
Therefore people like QL will ALWAYS have SOMETHING to “protest.”
January 15th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
Blake,
Your pessimism is disheartening.
Why don’t you give Obama a chance before being so negative? He hasn’t even been inaugurated!
We defended you on the blog early on but after seeing you in action…not so impressed.
We tried to support your efforts on the Catholic Church protest but we left quickly after seeing your main desire was to get camera shots of you and your cause. Instead of speaking to the people walking by us, you preferred to be in front of cameras. and the local media.
A camera was thrown from you to my partner to take photo shots….instead of a protest sign you had created. WTF?
We have since bowed out of your protests.
Until you mature to an activist that is truly concerned about the community and not photo/press shoots…you will continue to have a poor turn-outs for your protests.
Sorry to be so blunt….but we call it like we see it. While we are much older than you…we have some “wisdom” that you will gain as you age. Slam us back as we expect but you should think twice about that strategy.
We apologize to John Wright that called it right on Blake and are sorry we so strongly defended him.
Mark/Dante
January 15th, 2009 at 11:05 pm
It would be ridiculous for the NAACP to protest the inauguration for lack of minorities. What would not be ridiculous would be for the NAACP to protest if Obama had selected a white segregationist to give the invocation at the inauguration. That is what the outrage is about. Furthermore we never suggested demonstrating the inauguration but Obama was rightfully called out on his anti-Gay selection.
re: Why dont I give Obama a chance? We shouldn’t take the back seat approach to winning our civil rights. We should be constantly making demands that our politicians take pro-Gay action. As a movement that is what has to happen.
Obama has also made some serious mistakes even before being sworn in such as changing his position on marriage equality to advocate back-of-the-bus civil unions, the selection of Warren, and now clarifying that it will be later than sooner to repeal DADT. If we sit back and hope for change as Obama would have it then we might get slapped with more policies or legislation similar to DOMA and DADT, both put in place by our good friend Clinton.
You’re right that there is a bit of cynicism and skepticism and rightfully so I think. We shouldn’t be so blinded by optimism as to disregard valid criticism.
And again with the media. I organized the event and so I tried to get various people doing various jobs. I spoke to the media and had other people speaking to the media because I felt that we were most familiar with the issues. I tried to have people hand out literature to those going by and we did but most of the people that we interacted with that day were people that were driving by and saw our signs. I guess you left before I went out to hold a sign by the side of the street.
In the end, it’s a bit frustrating the comments that try to discredit me by calling me a media whore. Using the media is very effective. We were able to get our message out to hundreds of thousands of people that weren’t downtown that day. My apologies for sending out the press release and trying to make sure that that facet of the demonstration went smoothly.
Lastly, Dallas is Burning is right that QL will always have something to protest unless we are completely satisfied by winning our equality. We would be shooting ourself in the foot if we were to stop short of that. I will be the first one to congratulate Obama or any other politician that makes serious advances for our community but I’m not going to say kudos to you Mr. Obama for your promises. When he does a good job by actually doing something I will give him his dues and when he falters I will be there as well saying what he did wrong.
I’m sorry that you left the demonstration because you felt as though I was just all about the media. At the start of the demonstrating the media was there so that is what I was busy with, later I was handing out literature and holding a sign. I just wanted to get a pro-Gay message out to as many people as possible.