President Obama, having repeated his promise to end “don’t ask, don”t tell” on Saturday, got an additional nudge from the National Equality March on Sunday. Tens of thousands of gay rights supporters from across the country poured through the streets of the nation’s capital to demand equal rights for LGBT citizens. They have their work cut out for them. With a few small, scattered gains having been made, there are battlegrounds shaping up everywhere from Maine to California over the issues highlighted by the events of this past weekend.
My friend Joe, who celebrated 35 years with his partner last summer, asked why I haven’t written about gay rights. Boomers and Beyonders, he says, have a unique perspective. “We have won a few battles that won’t have to be fought again, but there’s a long road ahead and the netroots now taking the lead need to have strong support from the veterans.”
So here goes.
While reiterating his promise to end “don’t ask, don’t tell,” Obama gave no timetable for doing so. It’s time. Given everything else on his plate, those of us who support gay rights may be willing to cut the president a little slack, but this small step toward clearing some of the large injustices gays and lesbians have lived with since approximately forever is one Obama should be taking soon. 2010 sounds about right.
Other gay rights battlegrounds are active in Maine, where a ballot measure would repeal marriage rights for gays and lesbians, in Washington where a referendum must pass if full domestic partnership benefits are retained, and elsewhere. Meanwhile, according to Change.org, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops “is planning a major statement on marriage in November, preparing to issue new language about how the church views same-sex marriage. Unfortunately, the new language is more of the same… hateful, tired and representative of a theology that views people who are LGBT as less than.”
Compared to the record of togetherness set by Joe and Robert, my marital history is pretty lousy. (Up until this, my final marriage, that is, and its extraordinarily happy 17 years.) So it is hard to see my marital state being threatened by theirs being legitimized. Joe and I were also part of an AIDS support group during the 1990s, and witnessed tragic injustices suffered by dying young men whose hospital doors were barred to those who loved them best. A lot more needs changing than just “don’t ask, don’t tell.”
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Michigan) was quoted by Elizabeth Williamson and Neil King in Monday’s Wall Street Journal as saying it was “now possible ‘to get a buy-in from the military’ to end a policy opposed by gays and many liberals since it was passed by Congress in 1993.” The monumental pile of global problems to be solved may keep Obama from seizing this good opportunity; gay rights supporters could keep that door open until he does act.
Global issues aside, one home front fact remains: LGBT Americans have been unjustly treated in innumerable ways, for innumerable years.
Getting rid of “don’t ask, don’t tell” seems a very good way to start putting things right.
