In yesterday's Midday Open thread, Markos noted "[t]oday is the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act." Signed into law in 1990 by President George H.W. Bush, the ADA was a monumental step forward in insuring the inclusion of all Americans, regardless of disability or handicap, in our public spaces, public accomodations and in society in general. Despite the best efforts of its detractors, aside from the shameful ruling of the Supreme Court in Garrett v Univ of Alabama negating some of the ADA protects as they relate to suits brought against states for non-compliance with ADA, the protections of the ADA have provided a bulwark against the blatant and often times brazen discrimination that faced the disabled prior to its passage.
It allowed disabled Americans, many of whom are fully capable of working and being productive members of society, to "get in the door." Their exclusion under false or misleading assumptions allowed many Americans for the first time to interact with the disabled as they had never before and broke down many barriers, letting people see we all really aren't that different from one another and that it was the separation itself that helped perpetuate the false and misleading assumptions.
Yesterday was also the anniversary of another significant event along the road to equality in our nation's history. It was on July 26th some 62 years ago that Present Harry S Truman signed Executive Order 9981, an order desegregating the military and prohibiting racial, ethnic and religious discrimination in the armed forces. In part the order read
It is hereby declared to be the policy of the President that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin. This policy shall be put into effect as rapidly as possible, having due regard to the time required to effectuate any necessary changes without impairing efficiency or morale.
Like the Americans with Disabilities Act, EO 9981 broke barriers. Whereas African-American servicemembers had previously served in segregated units, whites (particularly southerners) made many false assumptions about the ability of African-Americans to serve in the armed forces. Many of these assumptions were entrenched, dating back at least as far as the all-black units of the Union Army in the Civil War. Even after Truman's order in 1948, some of the top brass continued to cling to those assumption on the qualifications of soldiers based on their race.
Juan Willams, in an article for the Washington Post Magazine in 1990 about Thurgood Marshall, discussed one such holdout, General Douglas MacArthur, and Marshall's interaction with MacArthur on desegregation of the Army while he was still chief counsel for the NAACP:
At the request of President Truman, Marshall traveled to the Far East in 1951 to review treatment of black soldiers under Gen. Douglas MacArthur. Marshall remembers asking MacArthur why there were no blacks in the elite group guarding the general, he was told none were qualified by their performance on the field of battle.
I said, 'Well, I just talked to a Negro yesterday, a sergeant who has killed more people with a rifle than anybody in history. And he's not qualified?' And he (MacArthur) said, 'No., I said, 'Well now, general, remember yesterday you had that big band playing at the ceremony over there?' He said, 'Yes, wasn't that wonderful?' I said, 'Yes, it's beautiful.' I said, 'Now, general, just between you and me: Goddammit, don't you tell me that there's no Negro that can play a horn.' That's when he said for me to go."
Today Marshall says the general was a racist: "What else can you say? Every other branch of the armed forces was desegregated, but he wouldn't budge. And when he left, the Amy desegregated too. Right away."
Right now, President Obama has the opportunity to make a similar order that will breakdown barriers and let a minority group that has heretofore been walled off from the majority in many aspects to be made whole.
I am of course talking about ending the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy. While DADT is law, the President, under 10 U.S.C. §12305, is empowered to halt the discharges, allowing openly LGBT Americans to serve openly in our armed forces while the repeal process works its way through Congress.
We have previously been told that they do not wish to make such a move because a legislative repeal was "the only durable way" to get rid of the policy. But such a sentiment doesn't square with the "compromise" plan announced in May where the DADT law (10 U.S.C. §654) is repealed, but is not replaced with a law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation meaning that a Republican President could very easily re-institute an outright ban on LGBT service members without running afoul of the law. The path they have chosen to take now is not durable either and could lead to a far worse outcome than the current DADT policy.
Indeed, by delaying action on DADT for two years, Obama and Gates are leaving only two years at most to implement a plan based on the "study" due this December. With such a short timeframe, and based on the likely results of the bigotedly worded survey the DOD is conducting, it would be very easy for a Republican President to declare the attempt at integrating a failure and initiate a purge of LGBT persons from the services.
This process on DADT has been a disaster right from the start. For a year we were told the Administration was working on it behind the scenes. Finally, thanks to pressure from the LGBT community, Congress could not accept that as an anser from the administration and scheduled a Senate Aremed Services Committee hearing on repealing DADT. The administration them pressured Chairman Levin to dropped it. When that didn't work, they got him to delay it by saying they would address it in the state of the union address. It rated one very carefully and deceptively parsed line. The following week when Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen testified, instead of getting a proposal for the repeal of DADT, we got a statement that they favor repeal but needs another year to study how to implement it, which begs the question of what exactly they were doing on DADT in 2009.
Part of their "study" is the now infamous survey of 400,000 current and retired servicemembers and their families. Not only was the survey needlessly large, many of the questions posed in the survey are presented LGBT's in a negative light and are designed to elicit an anti-gay response. But the size, expense and language weren't the only problems, as if those aren't problem enough. The survey questions are being asked from the perspective of "if Don't Ask Don't Tell is repealed." In fact that phrase occurs atleast 15 times in the survey. And when Admiral Mullen has addressed servicemembers on DADT these last few months, he too have been caught using the "if DADT is repealed" language when the LGBT community has been told this is not a question of "if," but "when." They can't have it both ways, because that means they are lying to one group or the other. And it is their own ineptitude that has put them in the position of having to lie about it.
One of the interesting things that has also been revealed in the process of this survey is the Pentagon revealing they did infact survey the troops on serving alongside African-Americans and Jews. Thanks to Wonk Room, who proceeded to dig up the survey results at the National Archives, for the first time the astounding responses to these surveys is public. They reveal a profound, deep-seated animous towards blacks and Jews by white servicemembers.
Given the wording of the LGBT survey, it will not be surprising if we see similarly high levels of anti-gay responses. What remains to be seen is what exactly the military is going to do with the survey responses. It is not farfetched to believe that they could use the results to kibosh the repeal, using the survey as ammunition. Afterall, they have been stressing over and over the importance of listening to the troops, how their imput is important. To this point, Obama has certainly not shown any signs that he is willing to pull a Truman and buck the survey results.
It'd be great if he did. He needs too. From the economic stimulus to health care reform to Guantánamo to any number of other matters, this administration has been far too willing to negotiate with themselves down to less than half of what the base really wants only to give up more than half of what is left to the Republicans.
Dr. Dean's recent editorial on the Huffington Post hits the mark when he tells Democrats to
Stand up for what you believe in. [...] After the year and a half this country has just been through, it is pretty obvious that the right-wing has no intention of cooperating with anyone, and that they will do anything to regain power, just as they were willing to do anything to hold on to it. The only reasonable approach is to stand up to them as you would any group of bullies. Call them out for what they do- or don't do as the case may be. If the Tea Party can call out some of their own members, surely we can call out a group of people who have put their party ahead of their country.
I have often said the biggest problem with the Democrats is that we are not tough enough. Now is the time to be tough.
[...]
The fact is that the Democrats won the election in 2008. The Republicans refuse to do anything for the country except say "no". That means we have to work hard and do what we believe is right. And we have to stop apologizing for it. We have to stand up for what we believe in and stop trying to make deals with people who cannot be trusted to make deals for the good of our country. It's not too late to win in 2010. Conviction politics works. Just ask the right wing!
And just to show how surreal this whole DADT debacle has become, even Bill f***ing O'Reilly thinks ending the discharges now is a good idea:
Leno: I don't know if you heard the thing I was mentioning. It actually made me angry that kid, the West Point kid. What's your take on that?
O'Reilly: Well, I don't get it. President Obama has the power to stop this Don't Ask, Don't Tell business. Just sign an executive order, so what? I don't know why its taking so long. You know?
Leno: And to me, doesn't it cost like $300,000 to send a kid to West Point? He speaks Arabic. I mean anybody that's willing to put their ass on the, ok bad choice of words...anybody that's willing to take a bullet for me is OK in my book.
O'Reilly: But $300,000 to the government, that's like 30¢, you know what I mean? So they don't care about costs. But look, its just not fair. We should stop this nonsense and uh... [applause]
Leno: There, you heard it from Bill O'Reilly. (emphasis added)
The Don't Ask, Don't Tell law notwithstanding, Obama has the authority under 10 U.S.C. §12305 to issue an executive order implementing a stop loss that would halt American patriots like Lt. Dan Choi from being discharged. The discharge of Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach is still pending. On Obama's watch, roughly 700 or more people have been discharged under Don't Ask, Don't Tell. The discharges need to stop.
While O'Reilly may to a large extent be disingenuous in his support for an order ending DADT's discharges just to be embarrasing for Obama, the litany of people on both side of the political spectrum advocating this is growing and the LGBT community is becoming increasingly unwilling to support though who won't support us when the issues come down the pipe. Democrats have to be willing to more than just talk about our issues , they have to vote for those issues in Congress and in the statehouses. The days of them being able to be low key about addressing LGBT issues are over. As Pam Spaulding of Pam's House Blend said in discussing her perspective on the 2010 North Carolina Senate race compared to the 2008 race
All that said, this was a far cry from 2008, when Kay Hagan, then running to boot Elizabeth Dole from her Senate seat, studiously avoided any interaction with the Blend or other LGBT media to get her on the record. She squeaked out support for DADT repeal in one debate, but otherwise was clearly told to fly under the radar on anything with LGBT on it. And this is the standard line out of the consultants that arrive from out of state, convincing NC candidates that TEH GAY is a losing issue for them.
And after I saw the blow off over and over, I vowed the next time around - NO MORE. If you want the gAyTM open and LGBT votes in a purple-trending North Carolina, you have to go on the record. In 2010, anyone who wants to be U.S. Senator will have a profound effect on LGBT lives nationally in a Senate where the votes are too close to call. Personally, I don't want to have to guess whether my Senator is a yes or no vote because they are too politically frail to take a clear position of some kind.
(emphasis added)
The LGBT community obviously doesn't have the power to pass measures like DADT repeal or ENDA on our own, but we do constitute approximately 10% of Democratic primary voters and probably around the same percentage of Democratic voters in general elections. If the LGBT community isn't enthused to vote and don't show up at the polls, Democrats lose.
And the community is despondent and angry at Democrats right now. We were lead to believe we'd have not just the hate crimes act passed by now, but ENDA and a DADT repeal as well. On both the DADT and ENDA issues, the American people are already on our side. ENDA was one vote short of passing the Senate on a vote in September of 1996 in a Senate controlled by Republicans 52-48, but in a Senate where the Democratic caucus numbers 59 members (57 D's and 2 I's) and with Maine Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe both signed on as co-sponsors of the ENDA, Democrats still claim to not have the votes. Where is the guy who claimed he'd be a "fierce advocate" on LGBT issues? Where is the guy that said he's use the bully pulpit of the White House to push for LGBT equality legislation? Where is the President on pushing for ENDA, now?
A few months back I made the case that the President has failed on the legislative front, on the judicial front, on the executive front and on a personal level to deliver for the LGBT community. My snarky calendar created in jest is continuing to become more and more prescient on the Obama timetable for LGBT rights:
- He just got into office for f*ck's sake. Just STFU for now!
- It's still early and he has a lot more important things to deal with. Just wait your turn and we'll get around to it later.
- We've got midterm elections to win. You can't expect us to address gay rights and run for office at the same time so just STFU! We'll get get to gay rights after the election.
- We're exhausted. We just had an election. The new Congress hasn't even started yet. Just lay off on the "gay rights" stuff til later.
- We have to get Obama re-elected. Presidential elections take up the full two years of the cycle and you can't expect Obama to kowtow to left wing GLBT activist extremists and expect win moderate votes, so just STFU!
- We just won re-election. Can you please just let us bask in the glow of that until after the inauguration?
- This Obama's last chance to really govern. We have real issues to deal with without making it seem we're beholden to some fringe special interest extremists like the GLBT community.
- Why are y'all just bring up gay rights now in the 7th year of President Obama's term? You guys didn't work for it and don't deserve to have your issues addressed on your terms. Besides, we haven't yet had a blue ribbon commission that will examine the issue for a year and issue a report, which will be followed by a peer reviewed study of the ramifications, which will be followed by a another commission which will examine the differences between the first commission report and the study. After that commission's report is studied, we'll make a recommendation to the President who will then have to have his advisors study the issue for a while. At that point, the President may add the recommendation to his State of the Union address. So give us another three years even though we only have one left.
- The commission is still doing its work behind closed doors, so don't talk about gay rights at all. We have another Presidential election to win and we can't be seen as being for gay rights in a Presidential election. Just STFU!
- Hey GLBT activists, we're on our way out. Half the President's advisors have already left for jobs in the private sector. Congress has adjourned until the new Congress begins. We are completely and utterly powerless lame ducks. What can the Obama Administration do for you? We're here to help.
We need leadership, Mr. Obama. The time to apply preassure to get an ENDA vote is now. The time to issue a stop loss order halting the DADT discharges until DADT is repealed is now. The consequences of letting large segments of a community that is 10% of you base be mad at you and you party, without genuine attempts to passed their agenda will be dire. The ball is in your court.