Tag Associated Press

Dear John McCain,

Pat Ryan 1 Comment

Jon Stewart’s pre-shaming wasn’t enough, so—shame on you, John McCain; for shame.  When it came to affirming the civil rights of homosexual Americans by supporting repeal of “don’t ask don’t tell,” you did exactly what you said you would not do. 

Dammit, it’s not a question of who soldiers are “comfortable serving with” if enforcing that prejudice denies the civil rights of other Americans.  Please tell me you wouldn’t make the same argument for white racists who are “not comfortable” serving with blacks?

This, added to your craven pandering to the worst elements of the body politic in your 2008 and 2010 campaigns, and your well-earned reputation as a man of honor, a man of truth, has at last and forever dissolved into the ether.  Although I haven’t agreed with you on every issue I trusted in your judgment and your integrity; now I can’t.  You’ve become “just another politician.”  How depressing.

Tear down this wall

Pat Ryan 1 Comment

This was supposed to be the last obstacle, right?  This report was to be the last gasp for members of Congress who imagine themselves, in Buckley’s phrase, standing athwart history yelling Stop, at the unstoppable sunrise of civil liberties for homosexuals in America.  Well, now it’s here; let’s see what they do.

Today the Department of Defense released its own report on the anticipated impact to military readiness if Congress were to repeal the hideously-christened “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law, which prohibits homosexual Americans from being honest about their sexuality if they want to serve their country in the armed forces.  DOD found that, by and large, there’s no problem—you can read the reports from the major outlets:  New York Times, Associated Press, Fox News.

The House of Representatives already voted to repeal the law; some in the Senate resisted, wanting to give the Pentagon a chance to determine if changing the law would weaken our national defense.  To those senators who were betting that, surely, the men and women in uniform would object vehemently to gay men and women serving openly, and thereby provide needed political cover to affirm the ban—shame on you for thinking so little of American soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen.

The former maverick John McCain was perhaps most prominent about yielding to the military leadership on this question; a couple of weeks ago Jon Stewart bothered to remember what McCain had promised. (click the pic)

imageThe Pentagon report concedes that a world without DADT might experience growing pains, but it assures Congress that some brief discomfort is no reason to wait.  Logically, then, there’s no valid reason not to repeal the law, and any objection that the change should be delayed until it’s not so hard to implement should be answered with a reminder that the same argument was floated when President Truman ordered desegregation of the military.

Yes, this is a civil rights issue; I’ve made my case here before.  There’s no stopping it—the change is coming—and if some lame duck members of Congress who aren’t worried about re-election any more make the difference in changing this law, so be it.

Justice DeLay-ed, not denied

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It ought to be a somber moment when a man who was once a high-ranking member of the leadership of our nation’s Congress is convicted of a high crime for his actions while in office, and it would have been in a more innocent day.  But on this day, I admit to being downright giddy that Tom DeLay—the Hammer—once my representative in the United States Congress—was nailed by a jury in Austin, Texas for violating our state’s election laws.

I don’t mean just that I was pleased Delay Trial because someone who broke the law was convicted of the offense; we all should take comfort when the system shows that the powerful are not above the law.  I mean, I was gleeful to hear that this particular sanctimonious, obnoxious, slimy, dishonest bully was finally getting what he deserved.   His wife and daughter seem to understand the seriousness of his predicament: not satisfied with mere victory at the polls, he engineered an illegal money-laundering plot to ensure partisan victory into the next generation—and that was before the Citizens United decision would have made it so easy to avoid prosecution for corrupting the process.

Schadenfreude?  You bet your ass.

The guy who forced a redistricting of the just-completed redistricting in order to secure a Republican majority that was already without doubt, is now a convicted felon?  Excellent.  The guy who insisted that lobbying firms fire every Democrat on the payroll in order to play ball with the Republicans in power, will now carry the stain of criminality for the rest of his life?  Perfect.  The guy who threatened that judges would become political targets if they couldn’t see their way clear to ignore the law to advance his partisan agenda?  Outstanding!

Sentencing comes in December so we don’t know yet if he’ll actually go to prison, but there’s hope, America…don’t give up hope.

Daily digest 1

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Some news of the day, in easy to swallow bites

A Supreme take on tolerance

One cool thing about retired justices of the Supreme Court is they tell us what they really think about things, like John Paul Stevens dropping his impartiality to talk about the community-center-with-a-mosque-near-ground-zero affair that we discussed back in August.

He said that a nation built by people who fled religious persecution “should understand why American Muslims should enjoy the freedom to build their places of worship wherever permitted by local zoning laws.”

(snip)

He called the [National Japanese American Memorial] “a powerful reminder of the fact that ignorance — that is to say, fear of the unknown — is the source of most invidious prejudice.”

Princess Leia inspires boy—to build hologram

Another cool thing—real holograms!

Worst thing about being president was name-calling?

Former President George W. Bush says the lowest point of his presidency was when Kanye West called him a racist over the government’s response to Hurricane Katrina.  Really?  It wasn’t September 11, or not catching bin Laden, or the economic crash with the bankruptcies, foreclosures, debt, and job losses?  It wasn’t lying to start a war that’s cost thousands of American lives and tens of thousands of Iraqi lives, or Abu Ghraib?  Not even the fact you couldn’t help ease the very real suffering of those victims of Katrina?  (And why do you care what Kanye West thinks?  Are you really so self-absorbed that you think that’s the worst thing that happened during those eight years?  Really?)

A lot of that daily 200 mil is for Michelle’s hairdressers

You can say almost anything and be believed, if you’re careful who you speak to.  Citing only a report in one Indian newspaper, which cites only one unnamed source, the geniuses of the political right have been trumpeting their disgust about the “fact” that our government is going to spend $200 million a day on President Obama’s diplomatic trip to India, including sending 34 warships to sit security off the coast of Mumbai.  Yeah, more than the daily cost of the war in Afghanistan, or the full purchase price of the New Jersey Nets.  Talk about your willing suspension of disbelief…

We’ve also just learned that water is wet

No, really: they sequenced Ozzy Osbourne’s DNA and confirmed what had long been suspected: he’s a mutant.

Equal justice for all: the gay rights tide has turned

Pat Ryan 1 Comment

The fight to keep homosexual Americans from enjoying the full rights of citizenship is over; the opposition is giving up.  A federal judge has enjoined the Pentagon from enforcing the “don’t ask don’t tell” policy anywhere in the world, and the expected reaction to that news was…nowhere to be heard.

Sure, hard-core haters had their say, but I’m struck by just how quiet it has been.  At the risk of fanning the flames, I’d say it looks like the usual suspects in the anti-gay effort have finally run out of steam, perhaps because it’s so clear that courts are going to enforce the Constitutional protections that have been denied to homosexuals.

First, the DADT (ugh!) policy is a crock and it should be repealed; it should never have been imposed.  Was anyone really in favor of a regulation that permitted gays to remain in the service unless they were discovered?  How in any important way is that any different than the old system, where gays were discharged when they were discovered?

The law’s days are clearly numbered.  Although the Justice Department asked the judge not to halt enforcement of the law while it prepares an appeal, the president has promised to get rid of the law—and Congress almost did so earlier this year!

The secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs favor repeal of DADT, but they want to go slow.   Excuse me, gents—why?  Because it would force an immediate change to benefits or buildings, or protocols for social events?  That’s why you want to wait until an internal review is completed, in a month a half?  Really?

I never understood the argument that allowing gay people in the service to be open about their sexuality would hurt morale (and hurt it even worse in time of war, or wars).  I don’t believe that most men and women in the armed forces are so closed-minded and prejudiced on this topic, because I don’t think most Americans outside the military are, either.

Think about the reality of the situation: if DADT has legally cleared the way for gays to serve since 1993, then people in the military have had at least since then to get used to the idea that gays are there: to get used to the idea that they don’t leer at you in the shower or rape you in your bed, at least not in any greater numbers than heterosexuals do those things; to get used to fighting next to them in a shooting war, and to know that they can be brave and trustworthy comrades, at least to the same extent that heterosexuals can be.

We can proclaim not to understand why people are homosexual, or embrace a religious belief that homosexual activity is a sin, but none of that matters in a tolerant, secular, civil society.  The experts can’t say why a person is sexually attracted to one gender or the other.  And it violates the rights of due process and free speech guaranteed to each American in the Constitution to treat someone differently because of their sexual orientation just as it would to treat them differently because of their gender or their ancestry. 

The tide has turned.  Homosexual activity is no longer illegal.  If you read or watch Ted Olson’s argument as presented on Fox News in August, the same argument he made in the California court case, you can see that the case for gay marriage will prevail.  States are giving up trying to stop homosexuals from adopting children.  Republican political strategists recognize that opposing gay rights is a long-term losing proposition.  One officer discharged under DADT has successfully sued to be reinstated in the Air Force.

You don’t have to “understand” gay people any more than you have to “understand” people of a different race or a different religion.  You only have to understand that these people are Americans like you, who believe in American rights like you do, who want to enjoy American freedoms like you do, who support our country with their work and their taxes like you do, and who want the opportunity to serve to protect this way of life, just like you do.