Most of us at this site, and even many who can't wrap their minds around same sex marriage, nevertheless are opposed to the obscene discrimination of DADT. And most of us, and most Americans (except the disingenuous John McCain), favored the post-9/11 GI Bill of Rights.
But because of DADT, if you are gay or lesbian, you are discriminated against not just in your ability to serve, but in the benefits eligible only to those who are allowed to serve, including the new huge federal benefit of the post 9/11 GI Bill.
It is not just the more than 13,000 gay and lesbian Americans who have been discharged from the military because of their sexual preferences. How many American citizens who otherwise want to serve, do not even sign up for military service, because they know DADT and the legalized discrimination against them?
Obama did promise the repeal of DADT during the campaign, but now that he is in office and has the power to so has so far, ahem, put this on the backburner.
It is worth pointing out that the post-World War Two GI Bill was a major force for good and the great class leveling in America in the 1940s and 1950s. But it was also part of the systemic pro-White affirmative action of the twentieth century.
Now I am doctor and not a lawyer. But it just seems to me to be obvious that the systemic de-eligibility of a class of American citizens from having the potential to be eligible for this federal benefit program is illegal, potentially unconstitutional (equal protection? due process?), discrimination and yet another reason for the immediate cancellation of DADT.
P.S.: I know neither DADT nor the GI Bill are in the immediate news cycle, and obviously I am concerned about health reform (see my signature line and diary record). But I did do a quick check of DADT and GI Bill diaries, and have not seen this connection made before here on Daily Kos. It needs to be made.