DADT: Gates wants to add 2.8K Special Forces and Employ 50K+ civilians but not protect the GLBT Service Members already sacrificing everything for US?

Gays and Lesbians are not people you can just "kick down the road" like a can of tuna in a street game of roller hockey, without expecting some sort of backlash.

Before his big budget announcement, Secretary Robert Gates stated "The President and I feel like we've got a lot on our plates right now and let's push that one down the road a little bit.", in an interview two Sundays ago with Fox News regarding "Dont Ask Dont Tell", which bars service members from proclaiming their sexual orientation and commanding officers from asking about it. However, the policy states that if it becomes known that a service member is gay, he or she is to be removed from the military. He went on to say, "the Pentagon will continue to enforce the existing policy...It continues to be the law and any change in policy would require a change in the law....We will follow the law, whatever it is." He also revealled that within the Administration "That dialogue, though, has really not progressed very far at this point in the administration."
(Source: Fox News)

Sadly, as I stated before, the Obama Administration is going to wait for the Supreme Court (Major Margaret Witt) and Congress to fight it out rather than getting involved and using up what little political capital they have left with the American public. Some in Congress stated back in 2008 that they wouldnt deal with the repeal of DADT until 2010, according to a report by QUEERTY, even though there is already legislation, that was reintroduced in the beginning of March. The Military Readiness Enhancement Act (HR1283), authored by Representative Ellen Tauscher (pic to right) of California's 10th District , with 137 cosponsors, is making its way through the Congressional process. The MREA after a month is currently held up in the House Armed Services sub committee on Military Personel. You may contact the 60 members of the main Committee individually, especially if they are in your District, and ask them to expedite this legislation through the process for the sake of all our men and women in uniform.



We have an estimated 65 thousand serving in silence and suffering the worst form of inequality and sacrificing their integrity and honour to assure our freedom and liberty. Another three thousand per year decide not to reenlist or enlist because of the discriminatory policy. The Congress is allowing the removal of 2 Service Members on average per day to be removed from their post for no longer living a lie. We owe them so much more than any talking pointes can conceive or contrive.

Meanwhile Democrats and Republicans are quibbling over whether or not the new Defense budget that is a 4% budget increase instead of a 15% increase, is in fact a cut or a 21 billion dollar increase in spending. Two weeks later the pundits, Congress, and military industrial lobbyist, are rambling on with no end in sight, as they try to save their pet projects in the budget proposal. Or the other distraction caused by Senator Inhofe of Oklahoma, whom while standing in the middle of one of our airbases in Afghanistan, claimed that the new budget and Secretary Gates is "gutting the military". When in fact, as outlined by CNN's Rick Sanchez (video) place, Senator Inhoffe is actually upset over a military factory in his home state loosing a contract because the plan would discontinue the production of the controversial decade old faulty designed and 87 billion dollar budgeted Future Combat System's vehicle component. Along with other pundits bitching about the discontinuation of the F22 fighter jets and switching the force over to F35 Joint Strategic Air Ships

The Secretary's announced budget besides, the detail of a 28 hundred troop increase Helicopter Crews and Maintenance and in Special Forces Combat Units and switching the 50 thousands in previous held Defense Department positions by independent contractors to actual government employees and civil service agents, also increases the Cyber Squadron from 80 to 250 students per year as of 2011, and immediately stops the reduction of forces in the Air Force and Navy. His budget also proposes to maintain planned increase Army Brigade Combat Teams strength to 547 thousand personnel and eliminate use of stop loss to maintain battle readiness.

Before we add all those people to the ranks, would it not be a good idea to have them all on equal footing?
I am tired of reading the horror stories of this failed policy in enlistment processes and everyday life.

It would also be easier to call people back whom have already left the service, either because of or as a result of DADT, and who decided to come out in their personal life only to be kicked out a second time under DADT when you call them back in to fill in the gaps, which has happened on 20 separate occasions that I am personally aware of.

You have 35 thousand people at a minimum who are willing to serve whom you removed from their Civic Duty, usually based on rumors, false accusations, and the United States Military's refusal to actually make a legitimate argument regarding us queers serving with honour or from being harassed within the scope of personal, religious, and political, biases or prejudices.

We have one more option to change this bastard child of a federal law, described by Aubrey Sarvis the Executive Director of the SLDN, whom asserted the the following on FRONTLINES:

Mr. President, if I may address you directly, you've got another situation looming ahead that also should come as no surprise. It is not the same order of magnitude as the global financial meltdown, but like that meltdown it is predictable and it has the potential to be exploited for political gain -- not your political gain but your opponents'.

In five weeks the House Armed Services Committee will begin hearings on your Defense Department budget for 2010. Senate hearings will follow. You have a choice. You can take the lead and put language calling for repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell in the legislative budget -- or you can wait until your opponents bring it up. The opposition, which may be loud and ugly, will be out to ambush you, Mr. President. Alarmingly, there have been no signs that your administration is prepared for that.

The principle, the truth, is self evident, Congress, and Mr. President, "All Men Are Created Equal". Allow us queers the ability to serve our country openly as equals. After all, we have already been there and are currently on the front lines and are treated as less than equal even after having given twice as much, including our partners and our children, whom aren't able to receive the same support an unmarried mother of three children, each of different fathers, would receive.



F6 Editorial Policy Statement

F6 has several resources and commentaries regarding GAYS IN THE MILITARY. As an issue of editorial policy, F6 will challenge any assertion that Don't Ask, Don't Tell is either Constitutional or proper policy in our great country, the land of the free and the home of the brave, especially in a place where all men are created equal!