Congress Overturns Ban of Gays Serving Openly, Sends Bill to Obama's Desk

Fox News ^ | Dec. 18, 2010

[Jess Kitting]

WASHINGTON -- In a landmark vote, the Senate on Saturday ended the Clinton-era ban on gays serving openly in the military, marking a major triumph for President Obama, liberals and the gay community.

The final vote to end the Pentagon's 1993 "don't ask, don't tell" policy was 65-31, drawing support from eight Republicans.

The bill now goes to the White House for Obama's signature. He is expected to sign the bill into law next week, a senior White House aide told Fox News.

[ElkGroveDan]

Its silly to have to have people hide who they are.

I agree, positive ID should be obtained for all members of the military. But getting back tot he point of THIS discussion, it's also silly to have mentally ill people who CHOOSE to engage in sexual perversion serve in the military and announce it to their colleagues.

[central_va]

DADT repeal is horrible and a way to undo it needs to be found, but you really want a military coup in America? Really? Is that your solution?

Might be a good idea.

[engrpat]

Knowing the democrats, I fear they will try to make being gay mandatory in the military.

[jessduntno]

Joe Manchin

[icwhatudo]

Sick sick sick

[central_va]

Our fighting men (and women) can handle this.

Zot?

[EDINVA]

Voting on this bill in the Congress, yea or nay, should have been restricted to those who have actually worn the uniform.

Forget what the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs says. He’ll never again in his life be in the situation of shared living with other troops. And, in Mullen’s case, I think he’s something of a political whore who will do/say whatever Obama wants rather than the rank and file. I may dislike him even more than I do Obama.

[DJlaysitup]

Yep RD...thing is...why fix something not broken? When I was a junior officer in the navy I was the disbursing officer on a very large ship (USS SAIPAN-LHA-2). I had a division of 8 guys. Me - three African Americans, a Portuguese fella, a Bostonite, a Mexican kid, a homo, and a filipino 1st Class. We didn’t have any problems at all.

Everybody was good at math...the homo kid was a wizard. Nobody cared cause he kept it to himself. I knew he was queer because the shoes he wore out on liberty were more expensive than my whole uniform. Still...I would have backed the kid up at Captains Mast any day because he was good at his job and didn’t flirt with the other guys.

[re_nortex]

As of now we no longer have a military fighting force with a mission to defend the U.S. Instead, we have a giant social experiment. I don’t believe for a second that any of these yes-voting senators really have a clue about what they have just done.

The military should be comprised of the best and brightest since lives are always at risk. By definition, homosexuals are deviants. Period.

Their abominable, disgusting deathstyle choice (and a choice is precisely the apt term) shows that they are utterly incapable of proper decision-making.

May God Almighty help our country and our soldiers in the wake of this most grievous sin.

[KansasGirl]

Burr, Ensign, Voinovich, Kirk, Murkowski, Scott Brown, Snowe and Collins.

[central_va]

I don’t have a problem with it. Its silly to have to have people hide who they are. I’ve always thought there was a case to be made for banning homosexuality in the armed service but DADT is offensive and hypocritical. Its like saying a woman can be pregnant but she needs to hide it so people won’t have to face it. This is one fight that is now history.

IMO this deserves the ZOT.

[imfrmdixie]

The Tea Party did back Brown. My bad on Kirk.

“The group Tea Party Express circulated a Rasmussen poll early Wednesday morning showing that 40 percent of Massachusetts voters now approve of the movement (to 41 percent who disapprove), and talking about the party’s contribution to Brown’s win”.

[parisa]

I wonder what ahmadinejads of the world are thinking to themselves today?

I wonder what they’re discussing in their national security bunkers???

They must be laughing their heads off!

[Cheerio]

I cannot even pray to God to save this once great country anymore, when our elected leader believe it is more important to legitimize perversion within the halls of Government than it is to pass the 12 budget bills as mandated by our Constitution. Let it sink. Almost 50% of the nation pays NO Federal Income tax now.

About the time our original thirteen states adopted their new constitution in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years earlier:
"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship."

[manc]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2644629/posts?page=16#198

There is a problem with homosexuals in the military as we should be taking sick mental folk as Manning has proved.

[saneright]

I wonder how thoroughly anyone in congress has thought this through -

1. A straight service member has an openly gay service member assigned as his roommate. The straight service member now must accept this. If he expresses the fact that this makes him uncomfortable what then? Will he be told tough, deal with it? Does he risk punishment of some kind from his commanding officers?

2. A gay service member from Massachusetts wants on base housing for he and his same gender spouse. Will the military have to accommodate him? If you are a normal straight couple with children will you now be forced to live next door to this couple if you reside in on base housing? You must now accept this lifestyle as normal or else?

3. Will gays now demand their own gay only NCO club on base? How about a bathhouse?

4. Will the military be forced to accept blood donations from homosexuals even though there is a long incubation period with the HIV virus?

[Gene Eric]

>> I wonder what ahmadinejads of the world are thinking to themselves today?

How to enlist.

[TCH]

“There are already more than 35 nations with open service by homosexuals in their militaries including our nearest allies like the Brits, Canadians, Aussies and Israelis. Our fighting men (and women) can handle this.”

Screw off, reprobate!

Our military should NOT have to “handle” this.

Jim, ZOT this freaking moron.

[napscoordinator]

Everyone get on their phones and call the White House ASAP. Don’t wait! Do it now!!! /sarc. Nobody hold their breath please! We don’t need any deceased FREEPERS.

[Fantasywriter]

Thanks for the additional input. It may be just a formality, but maybe not. The DoD knows more than it’s telling about how devastating this would be for our troops. I wonder just how eager they are to initiate the destruction this change would wreak. I don’t claim any insider knowledge, but I do think there are reasons for the DoD to apply the brakes on implementation. This would be a terrible time for enlistment and re-ups to plummet, for morale to take a nosedive, and for general disruption and degradation in the ranks.