"You don't need to be straight to fight and die for your country. You just need to shoot straight."
These wise words - uttered 40 years ago by unlikely gay rights supporter Barry Goldwater - hold true more now than ever before.
President Obama today signed into law the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell," or in layman's terms, that archaic law that said banana-lovers and fish-lickers can't join the exclusive ranks of the military.
Color me a cynic, but I don't see how this is the major victory the mainstream media is portraying it as being. Sen. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) was quoted as saying that this is the "single biggest thing" to be achieved in the history of gay rights. Really, Sen. Frank? Your own state's approval of gay marriage wasn't as big as the repeal of DADT? I beg to differ on that one.
I'm not going to sit here and be entirely pessimistic - I'm a gay rights supporter, of course I'm excited about this news. But the fact of the matter is, I should have read these headlines years ago. There's no reason why the United States should (again) be behind its companion megapower nations on this issue. It's embarrassing enough that we're 36th in the world on healthcare, do we really need to be behind on an issue like this as well?
I can't help but think that the overwhelming passage of this bill in the Senate has more to do with Republicans wanting to play the "gay-friendly" card in the future, and less to do with them actually supporting it. I don't doubt that the party is beginning to wake up to the fact that the majority of the nation does not want to elect a party of homophobes. And, on the flipside, I fear that this is merely President Obama's excuse to put gay rights on the backburner for the next two years while he plays "nice" with Republicans to gain political traction for 2012.
But alas, it's a dog eat dog world out there, and at least now we know we've got a few gays barking in the battle. Score one point for the Democrats, I suppose.
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