My friend Rep. Patrick Murphy has been leading efforts in the House of Representatives to repeal the military's discriminatory Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy. Having served with the 82nd Airborne Division in Iraq, Patrick has seen first-hand the devastating impact of DADT both on the gay soldiers who have been willing to serve and on our national security interests. As he recently told The Advocate,
[T]he fact is, there have been 13,500 American soldiers who were willing to take a bullet for our country to keep us safe, and they were ripped out of their units and then thrown out of our military just because they happened to be gay. And we need to stand up for national security and the American taxpayers that see that we’re wasting $1.3 billion of their tax money to enforce this policy, and change this once and for all.
And here's his greetings to us this afternoon:
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Hey everybody! It’s great to be here on Daily Kos to have the chance to discuss our current efforts to repeal the wrongful and discriminatory Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy. Before we get started, I want to give everybody a brief overview of where we stand in the process.
We all know that Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell hurts our military readiness by drumming out thousands of well-qualified and highly trained soldiers for no reason other than their sexual orientation. When I was in Iraq, my fellow paratroopers were concerned about getting their job done and getting every members of our unit home, not about the sexual orientation of the guy next to them. That’s why I’ve been fighting every day to change this wrongful law. President Obama, Secretary of Defense Gates, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral Mike Mullen agree that the policy is wrong. Even Colin Powell and Dick Cheney agree.
Today, we’re closer than we’ve ever been to repeal. A majority of the American public agrees with our efforts and my bill, H.R. 1283 - The Military Readiness Enhancement Act, has 192 cosponsors. This is over 40 more co-sponsors than the bill had last Congress. Also, for the first time ever, my bill has a Senate companion introduced by Senator Lieberman.
Change rarely comes easy. This fight is no exception and last week our effort has experienced recent setbacks. But we’ve come too far and accomplished too much to give up. Instead, we need to redouble our efforts for the final push to get rid of this shameful law once and for all. I look forward to partnering with you all to accomplish that knowing that we are on the right side of history.
With that, I’m happy to answer your questions.