Diana’s Little Corner in the Nutmeg State: DADT = RIP

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

DADT = RIP

Today Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is repealed! Today gays and lesbian can now serve openly in the arm forces and I am extremely glad that they can now do so openly. As I say in my profile I believe in Equality, and today gays and lesbian can now die equally for their country; however, trans-people still cannot. A trans-person can still be discharged for who they are.

The LGBT newspaper the Houston Chronicle reports that in Boston,

Gay rights supporters to stage protest in Boston
Houston Chronicle
Published September 20, 2011

BOSTON (AP) — Supporters for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights are marking the end of the military "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy by staging a protest in Boston to draw attention to the fact that transgender American are still unable to serve openly in the military.

However, the LGBT magazine the Advocate does not mention that that trans-people are not covered in the repeal of DADT. In the mainstream media, there is nothing that mentions the trans-people are not on the CBS News web-site, nor the Time web-site, nor on MSNBC website, nor on CNN, nor on… well you get the picture. Now let’s see if the LGBT organizations fight just as hard to prevent trans-people from being discharged or will they turn their attention to repeal of DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act).

When Sen. Lieberman came to the UConn Rainbow Center to talk about DAPT last year, I asked him about DADT and if it covered trans-people and he said no, it only covers gays and lesbian. When I posted that on a national LGBT blog and I got pounced on by over a half a dozen gays who said that I was trying to hijack DADT and make it into a trans-issue. It is a LGBT issue folks, we should be working together to allow anyone to serve in the military, not just gays and lesbians. It was the trans-community that was thrown under the bus again when we tried to fight for our rights.

Just for some background information, all other NATO countries allow trans-people to serve in the military and trans-people have served right alongside of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. So this wouldn’t by like the US military blazing a trail, but more like the US catching up to the rest of the world.

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Quotes

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.

A right delayed is a right denied.Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.

Martin Luther King Jr.

No one is born hating another person… People must learn to hate and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.
Nelson Mandela

We can disagree and still love each other, unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist
James Baldwin

There is a fine line between free speech and hate speech. Free speech encourages debate whereas hate speech incites violence.
Newton Lee

The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.
Albert Einstein

"The point is that there are always obstacles, whether they seem insurmountable or merely bothersome. The question is not how difficult the path, but whether in your heart, you wish to undertake the journey."
Zandru's Forge

Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive because your words become your behavior. Keep your behavior positive because your behavior becomes your habits. Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values. Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny.
Mahatma Gandhi

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

You've Got To Be Carefully Taught
You've got to be taught
To hate
And fear
You've got to be taught
From year
To year
Its got to
Be drummed in your dear little ear
You've got to
Be carefully
Taught
You've got to be taught
To be
Afraid
Of people
Who's eyes are oddly made
And people who's skin is a different shade

South Pacific
Songwriters: Oscar Hammerstein II / Richard Rogers

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

DADT = RIP

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