Brody's Scribbles... Michael Bedwell Reacts To DOD's Plan To Implement Repeal Of DADT

The author, Michael Bedwell, is a LGBT equality rights activist who was arrested along with former Lt. Dan Choi and 11 others at the White House last November protesting President Obama's failure to push harder for DADT repeal.  Mr. Bedwell is editor & publisher of the Leonard Matlovich dot com website, dedicated to the memory of USAF Technical Sergeant Len Matlovich, a pioneer in the early LGBT equality rights movement to overturn the military's ban on openly serving Gay & Lesbians nearly 2 decades before passage of the Clinton-era "Don't Ask-Don't Tell" ban in 1993. Matlovich, who passed away during the AIDS pandemic, had inscribed the phrase, "When I was in the Military, they gave me a medal for killing two men, and a discharge for loving one," on his grave's headstone.

"The Repeal Implementation Plan prepared for the Secretary of Defense lays out a comprehensive and deliberate path forward for implementing this policy change throughout the force," said Alexander Nicholson, Executive Director of Servicemembers United and a former multi-lingual Army interrogator who was discharged under DADT. "In typical military fashion the plan is quite thorough and some steps may seem unnecessary or redundant, but overall we believe this plan continues to show a good faith effort on the part of the Department of Defense to swiftly move forward with training, certification, and repeal."

By Michael Bedwell (Washington DC) FEB 12 | We see Mr. Nicholson is still kissing ass when he should be kicking it. Instead of singing “Kumbaya” and hoping for more ‘Smores, every genuine advocate for gay equality should be repeating what Palm Center Director Aaron Belkin said last month—that the Pentagon could end the ban NOW “if there was the political will” [READ: Obama hadn't sold his soul to bigots in the Pentagon who are determined to drag this out as long as they can].

“[Army Chief of Staff] Casey in particular is leaving soon and doesn’t want to be known as the Army chief of staff who let gays in on his watch. The foot-dragging is not about some sincere or legitimate sense that the troops need to be trained on how to deal with gays; it’s because they don’t want to be around when the policy happens.” - Washington Blade, January 6, 2011.

When Clinton ordered "Don't ASK" in 1993, military recruiters didn't lock up and go home until new forms were written, printed, and shipped to them. They simply took pens and marked out the question about homosexuality and kept doing their jobs.

Last March, when Gates announced changes to DADT implementation, he said they took effect IMMEDIATELY, gave the forces only 30 days to update their paperwork, and required NO "training."

Training? Even assuming there is REALLY a need to say little more than: “ATTENTION: yesterday we banned out gays. Today we don’t. There will be Zero Tolerance for failure to cooperate. Paperwork to follow. Dismissed!” let’s revisit the Palm Center’s December study:

“ANY CLAIM THAT [IMPLEMENTATION CANNOT HAPPEN] UNTIL AFTER THE COMPLETION OF EXHAUSTIVE TRAINING IS INCONSISTENT WITH DOD HISTORY AND NOT BASED ON MILITARY NECESSITY. Whatever preparations are ultimately deemed necessary, THE PENTAGON OUGHT TO BE ABLE TO PULL THEM OFF FASTER THAN IT DID THE IMPLEMENTATION OF DADT IN 1994, WHICH TOOK APPROXIMATELY 40 DAYS. [C]ase studies demonstrate that training can take place quickly, even in combat zones, and that policies are generally implemented BEFORE OR CONCURRENT WITH training. The Pentagon’s request for up to a year to train the troops prior to the repeal of DADT is unprecedented. Training is not a prerequisite…to claim otherwise is a vote of no confidence in members of the armed forces, is not supported empirically, and is suspiciously dilatory. Training, like the formal publication of instructions, can occur (and has occurred) ex post facto.”

And how sad is it that the person overseeing implementation, Secretary Stanley, is an African-American retired Major General who began his 33-year career in the Marines when the failure of the Pentagon to take racial equality seriously TWENTY YEARS after Truman ordered integration was exploding across military installations from Kentucky to Korea, with “race riots” on bases and ships, is insisting that existing regs and “chain of command” can adequately deal with discrimination against gays in assignments, evaluations, promotions, etc.—the same thing racists said back then.

The fact is that is that if the “various diversity programs, tracking initiatives, and complaint resolution processes under the Military Equal Opportunity Program” are still necessary in terms of “race, color, religion, sex, and national origin” then there is no logical excuse for not including “sexual orientation.” Their refusal only proves that while the Antigay Industry failed to stop the beginnings of the end of the ban itself, those SEVEN antigay orgs the Pentagon Working Group met with are still pulling the Pentagon and White House’s chains.

Perhaps if they were saying, "We will stop killing baby seals following a strict three tier process that will take months during which we have to train 2.2 million troops on how not to kill baby seals after which there will still be a sixty day period before we can really stop killing them" more would actually give a damn. In Egypt, people risked death for freedom. Here they yawn, and issue press releases thanking Massa for promising to finally set them free some day. Nicholson would get more worked up if his dinner were late.