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DADT: Goodbye Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, Hello To A New Civil Rights Movement

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When Tanya Domi joined the Women’s Army Corps 37 years ago as a “slick sleeve” Private in 1974, she had no idea how the “Gay Ban” military policy which preceded “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell ” by  52 years would affect her life. Its ultimate repeal, fought successfully by a new generation of veterans and activists marks the beginning of a new civil rights movement in America. 

Today is a special day in American history. Indeed, the repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law marks a major advancement in America’s political compact to create a “more perfect union” by extending the right to gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military. As of this morning at 12:01 a.m. in all time zones across the planet, for the first time in the 235 years since the U.S. Military was established, gays may serve openly in uniform without fear of discharge.

I would have never imagined how much the gay ban in the military would affect my life when I enlisted in the Women’s Army Corps in 1974 (I was not out to myself, let alone to anyone else when I enlisted.) The gay ban, most recently known as DADT, which became law in 1993, became a part of my daily venacular since that day in 1974 when I was called into a dark investigator’s office at Ft. Devens, Massachusetts, was read my Miranda rights and was charged with the crime of “homosexuality,” following an innocent first visit to a gay bar in Boston.

By the time the Ft. Devens witchhunt for lesbians took place in the mid-1970s, the American government  had officially discriminated against gays and lesbians who served in the military for 33 years, a practice initiated by psychiatrists who had pathologized homosexuality in a new policy created to actively exclude them from the ranks (see Coming Out Under Fire, by Alan Berube) as America launched a draft effort that would brings millions of Americans into uniform during World War II.

Most recently, the American media–populated by lazy journalists–have regularly portrayed DADT absent the factual history of an American government that has viciously pursued homosexuals in the ranks for more than two centuries. Since the days of General George Washington and the Continental Army, the American government had been meting out punishments to homosexuals. Under Washington, homosexuals were “drummed out” and tarred and feathered, and court martialed. Later, homosexuals were imprisoned for sodomy, delivered sentencing that included hard labor in maximum security prisons, or imprisoned in Navy brigs, which included the added indignity of being fed “bread and water.” Others were given nonjudicial punishment that resulted in the reduction of rank, and issuance of life-altering derogatory discharges that were characterized as “other than honorable,” “bad conduct,” and even, “dishonorable and psychiatric discharges.” Most recently, policy migrated to applying financial penalties which began under President George H. W. Bush in 1991, which applied a 50 percent reduction in benefits, not withstanding the receipt of an honorable discharge.

Today, as the bells of freedom ring across America for lesbian, gay, bisexual (but NOT trans persons) in the military, the sky won’t fall, gay marches will not ensue on military bases (although, why not?) gays in uniforms will not mob barracks or officer clubs in flaunting flamingo dances, ultimately belying the unfounded red-herring claims of wild-eyed, virulently anti-gay activist Elaine Donnelly. (Could we be so lucky that Donnelly will recede into history too?)

Indeed, while many across America today will celebrate this great moment, a new generation of LGBTQ activists, dominated by the “Millenials,” will mark this victory by taking to the streets in dozens of actions across the country, to illuminate the vast inequality of LGBT Americans under federal civil law, led by GetEQUAL, a national organization dedicated to applying the principles of nonviolent civil disobedience.  GetEQUAL played a decisive role in the demise of DADT when a number of activists–including Iraq war veteran Lt. Dan Choi– chained themselves to the White House fence, bringing a new image to the face of discrimination in America and no doubt, caused consternation within the Obama White House.

GetEQUAL arrived on the national scene during the most recent battle to take down “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,”  emerging to play a classic activist, outsider role, and, while sometimes disconcerting to mainstream groups such as the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), gave the DADT repeal effort the necessary political pressure to finally repeal legalized discrimination in the military.

GetEQUAL did not come out of “nowhere,” it was founded by a number of people, most prominently its director Robin McGehee.

McGehee, a lesbian and mother of two from Mississippi, had moved to Fresno, and became a co-director of the National Equality March and the Meet in the Middle March 4 Equality of 2009. She, along with many others, was radicalized by California voters who in November 2008 supported Proposition 8, overturning marriage equality for lesbians and gays by way of a constitutional amendment banning marriage between same-sex partners, reversing the California Supreme Court’s 2008 decision.

McGehee repeatedly says, she would rather spend time with her family than take on this fight for equality, but because she knows that discrimination must be challenged, she has stepped forward in very brave and decisive ways, emerging as one of America’s top leaders in the LGBTQ civil rights movement today.

In August, McGehee, along with Heather Cronk, the managing director of GetEQUAL, brought 92 activists from 25 states and the District of Columbia together in Memphis, Tennessee for a national meeting and training to discuss how the LGBTQ activist community can move forward in a nationally strategic and tactical manner that will advance our new civil rights movement toward full federal equality. Cronk a community activist, with superlative management and organizing skills, put together the training in collaboration with United We Dream immigration activists and community organizers, working and planning together in an unprecedented manner to advance the rights of the LGBTQ community. In Memphis, McGehee called on activists to take bold action around the country and put pressure on elected officials from California to Maine. Today, that plan and those actions are happening in 12 different locations across the country.

At the stroke of midnight today, McGehee tweeted, “Deep love & respect to ALL individuals & orgs who helped take us another step closer to = “.  GetEQUAL understands that we can’t achieve equality through one strategy alone–we must work together as a civil rights movement and use all political sticks and carrots to move our equality agenda forward and not leave anyone behind in a community that should and can be lead by principled leadership at all levels of activism.

Let me raise a flag and plant one too:  I joined GetEQUAL’s board recently because I don’t choose to wait another 40 years to achieve federal equality for LGBT people. I want to see and experience full federal equality in my lifetime. Watching GetEQUAL take on the Obama Administration’s double talk and delay tactics made me a true believer in bringing back principled non-violent civil disobedience as a legitimate tool in organizing for equality. That stick disappeared when ActUp! faded from the scene in the 1990s. GetEQUAL has replaced it at a vital moment in our history.

So as we shift from “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” to expand our civil rights further, including trans rights in the military, my personal life involves a loving commitment to my Canadian partner, whom I have been with for nearly the past six years. We met and fell in love in New York City, our home. Under the NAFTA trade agreement my partner can legally work in America, but she does not have the right to permanent resident status through her work permit alone. These work permits are approved for three-year periods and must be renewed in order for her to remain in New York City. Because of DOMA, our relationship does not qualify for immigration status entitling her to live and work freely in the United States on a permanent basis.

In the new post-repeal military, I do believe that its leadership will not be exactly comfortable with the inequality of our gay families’ lives who are on active duty. To be denied housing and health care benefits because of DOMA, soldiers will sadly worry, for good reason, about the well-being of their families, thus distracting them from the mission at hand. This inequality will come into stark relief during the course of regular military life and ultimately, that unfairness delivered by the hands of DOMA, must face the glaring spotlight that we activists must directly expose.

This is a happy day for some of us in our community, but none of us should ever be satisfied or complacent with progress for one part of the community. GetEQUAL is going to be around to remind not only the community, but the rest of country, that we are not equal until all of us become fully equal under America’s laws.

Let me leave you with the words of the poet Langston Hughes wrote in “Democracy”:

I tire so of hearing people say, 
Let things take their course.
Tomorrow is another day.
I do not need my freedom when I’m dead.
I cannot live on tomorrow’s bread.

Freedom
Is a strong seed
Planted
In a great need.

There is a great need for more equality. We are not done. We are not finished, until we are all equal together as one. Meet you at the barricades until we GetEQUAL.

 

 

Tanya L. Domi is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University who teaches about human rights in Eurasia and is a Harriman Institute affiliated faculty member. Prior to teaching at Columbia, Domi worked internationally for more than a decade on issues related to democratic transitional development, including political and media development, human rights, gender issues, sex trafficking, and media freedom.

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‘Mouths of Sauron’: Critics Blast ‘Mobster Tactic’ of Trump Surrogates ‘Violating’ Gag Order

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May 14, 2024

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In his remarks outside the courtroom Tuesday, Donald Trump demanded Judge Juan Merchan rescind the tailored gag order placed on him that was designed to ensure the sanctity of the trial and the safety of witnesses, jurors, court staff, and their families.

“The gag order has to come off,” Trump told reporters Tuesday morning, adding his frequent “never been anything like this in the history of our country” claim.

Judge Merchan just last week reportedly cited Trump’s own words from his own book when defending his decision to keep the gag order in place and not modify it.

“When you are wronged, go after those people, because it is a good feeling and because other people will see you doing it. Getting even is not always a personal thing. It’s just part of doing business,” Trump’s book passage reads.

But as The Washington Post reported Monday, Trump’s surrogates are saying “the forbidden stuff for him.” They “have helpfully stepped forward to offer a timely and convenient service: lodging those same attacks, while appearing at the trial in support of him.”

READ MORE: Trump Wails His Judge Was Appointed by ‘Democrat Politicians’ – That’s False

“Republican lawmakers have appeared at Trump’s trial — even entering and exiting the courtroom with him — and proceeded to say precisely the kinds of things he’s not allowed to.”

Because the “kinds of things he’s not allowed to” say violate the gag order.

Politico reports, “Trump’s surrogates continue launching verbal attacks that would violate gag order if Trump said them himself.”

But according to the text of Trump’s gag order, he is “directed to refrain from”:

“Making or directing others to make public statements about known or reasonably foreseeable witnesses concerning their potential participation in the investigation or in this criminal proceeding; Making or directing others to make public statements” about attorneys “in the case other than the District Attorney,” “members of the court’s staff and the District Attorney’s staff, or the family members of any counsel or staff member” or “any prospective juror or any juror in this criminal proceeding.”

The prosecution has not indicated it will, but it could ask the judge to examine the “directing others to make public statements” portion of the gag order.

On Tuesday, one of the most powerful elected Republicans in the country, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, became the most high-profile Trump surrogate on the planet.

RELATED: ‘Campaigning for Trump at His Criminal Trial’: Johnson Blasted for Going to NYC Courthouse

Critics are blasting Speaker Johnson, who is second in line to the presidency, for attending the trial Tuesday and for delivering remarks some are calling false, in support of the indicted ex-president and 2024 GOP presumptive nominee.

“When asked for his worldview when Mike Johnson became Speaker of the House and nobody knew anything about him he said, ‘you want to know my worldview? Go read the bible, that’s what I stand for,'” MSNBC’s Willie Geist said Tuesday. “And now today he’s at the courthouse defending the guy who’s on trial for allegedly paying off a porn star for the alleged affair he had while his wife was home with their infant son.”

Johnson and U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) are among those who went and said what the judge told Trump he could not.

Johnson strongly defended Trump Tuesday morning. And following the Trump playbook, he attacked the prosecutor, the judge, and the judge’s daughter, which could be deemed a violation of Judge Merchan’s gag order against Trump if he decides Johnson’s remarks came at Trump’s request.

Award-winning journalist Laura Bassett, the former editor-in-chief of Jezebel, responded to that video, writing, “The guy who admitted that he and his son monitor each other’s porn intake is out here publicly lying on behalf of a man who cheated on his wife with a porn star and paid to cover it up.”

Calling it “Craven,” and “lawless,” Bloomberg Opinion Senior Executive Editor Tim O’Brien remarked, “House Speaker Mike Johnson is outside the NY courthouse right now and essentially helping Trump sidestep the court’s gag order by acting as his proxy by attacking the integrity of the trial and judicial process. He’s even targeting Justice Merchan’s daughter.”

READ MORE: Johnson Would Contest 2024 Election Results Under the Same ‘Circumstances’

Congressman Donalds, who is on the short list to become Trump’s vice presidential running mate, also attacked the judge’s daughter on Tuesday, from outside the courthouse.

Political commentator Bob Cesca observed, “If you’re wondering why Vance, Tuberville, and Johnson are there, it’s because of the gag order. They’re Trump’s voice. The Mouths of Sauron,” he wrote, referring to the near-entirely evil creature from J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings.”

“BTW, asking surrogates to attack witnesses and the judge’s daughter is a violation of the gag order,” he added.

Former Denver Chief Deputy District Attorney Craig Silverman remarked, “Note how Trump gets Vance and Johnson to violate the gag order for him. Mobster tactic. Make your Trump champions violate the law right along with you. Once they are in for a dime, they are in for a dollar and stuck with MAGA.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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‘Campaigning for Trump at His Criminal Trial’: Johnson Blasted for Going to NYC Courthouse

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May 14, 2024

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Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is the latest high-profile Republican to travel to the Manhattan Criminal Courts Building in New York City to show his support for Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee facing a total of 88 criminal charges, including 34 felonies in his election subversion, falsification of business records case, better known as the “hush money” trial. Johnson holding a news conference Tuesday morning from the courthouse in support of the indicted ex-president.

Earlier Tuesday morning from the courthouse (video below) Trump was asked by a reporter, “are you directing surrogates to speak on your behalf?” Trump avoided the specific question but claimed, “I do have a lot of surrogates and they are speaking very beautifully, and they come from all over Washington and they’re highly-respected and they think this is the greatest scam they’ve ever seen.”

Johnson’s grip on his job has been challenged by the far-right extremists in his own caucus, led by U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) but his travels to Mar-a-Lago to see and be seen with Trump have fortified his hold.

As NCRM reported Monday, during the early days of the Trump New York criminal trial many noted the ex-president was alone. He was sitting, and at times, snoozing, alone in court, unsupported by family members or friends. That changed as the weeks went by, and now his son Eric Trump is a regular face in the courthouse, and GOP lawmakers, generally in twos, are showing up daily to act as campaign surrogates inside and outside the courthouse.

RELATED: ‘Grave Danger’: Trump’s ‘Raw Display’ of Power at Court Alarms Conservative

On Monday, U.S. Rep. Tommy Tuberville (R-GA) and U.S. Senator J.D. Vance (R-OH) were the latest pair to attend the trial. Sen. Vance attacked the judge’s daughter, which prosecutors may decide to bring up to the judge as it may have violated Trump’s gag order if the ex-president directed him to do so. Congressman Tuberville, a white Christian nationalist, followed the Trump playbook, attacking the judicial system, and the jurors, whom he suggested were not U.S. citizens.

And now the Speaker of the House of Representatives, second in line to the presidency, is at the Criminal Courts Building in lower Manhattan, effectively stumping for the indicted leader of his party.

Critics are expressing outrage.

Former Chicago Tribune editor Mark Jacob, who comments on politics and the media on Substack, blasted Speaker Johnson.

“MAGA Mike Johnson is showing up at the Trump trial today to show his support for cheating on your wife with a porn star, paying her hush money, and then falsifying business records so the voting public doesn’t find out the truth,” Jacob wrote, adding: “This is Mike Johnson’s version of Christianity.”

Jared Ryan Sears, who writes The Pragmatic Humanist at Substack, lamented, “This is what half of American politics has become. It is embarrassing. There could be bills trying to solve price gouging, the border, poverty, homelessness, worker pay, or addressing any other real and current issue.”

“Instead members of Congress waste their time making a show of going to a trial for someone who had affairs, paid hush money, and covered it all up to mislead the public ahead of a close election,” Sears continued. “Then they will get in front of the cameras and say phrases like ‘weaponized justice’ and ‘lawfare’ when they know full well no such thing is happening. All so that their dear leader doesn’t mean tweet about them.”

READ MORE: Johnson Would Contest 2024 Election Results Under the Same ‘Circumstances’

Journalist Marcy Wheeler, who writes about civil liberties and national security, served up a damning indictment of Speaker Johnson: “It is newsworthy NOT just [because] the entire GOP is pro-crime, but ALSO that a man who would dictate reproductive choice and other life choices to others is backing a guy whose cover-up for f*cking multiple sex workers (without a condom!!) was charged as crime.”

Appearing to focus on the media, she added: “Speaker Mike should be GRILLED about whether he supports extramarital affairs during pregnancy. Don’t give him this stunt for free.”

Journalist Jonathan Ford of Ford News called it “an absolute disgrace,” while observing, “You don’t see Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries showing support for Senator Menendez.”

“Last week,” The Nation’s John Nichols notes, “most House Democrats voted with most Republicans to save Mike Johnson’s speakership. This week, Johnson is in a NYC courtroom to support Donald Trump. Democrats need to STOP providing cover for the most extreme Speaker in American history.”

Former Obama chief strategist and senior White House advisor David Axelrod commented, “As if this weren’t already a bizarre reality show, now we have celebrity guest courtroom gallery appearances of acolytes looking to punch their card with the Boss.”

Watch Trump’s remarks, with Speaker Johnson in the background, below or at this link.

READ MORE: Trump Wails His Judge Was Appointed by ‘Democrat Politicians’ – That’s False

 

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Trump Wails His Judge Was Appointed by ‘Democrat Politicians’ – That’s False

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21 hours ago

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May 13, 2024

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During one of several rants outside the courtroom Monday during his New York trial for alleged criminal business records falsification, election interference, and “hush money,” Donald Trump repeatedly complained falsely that the judge overseeing the case was appointed by “Democrat politicians.”

Trump is well-acquainted with New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan.

Merchan was the judge who presided over the trial of Trump’s former Chief Financial Officer, Allan Weisselberg, who was convicted. He also presided over the fraud and money-laundering trial of former Trump 2016 campaign CEO and senior White House counselor Steve Bannon.

“We have a corrupt judge, and we have a judge who’s highly-conflicted,” Trump, nearly yelling, told reporters Monday afternoon. “And he’s keeping me from campaigning. He’s an appointed, New York judge, he’s appointed.”

READ MORE: ‘He Wasn’t Thinking About Melania’: Cohen Reveals Trump’s Fears in ‘Hush Money’ Testimony

“You know who appointed him? Democrat politicians. He’s appointed.”

Trump repeated his baseless claims Merchan is “corrupt” and “conflicted,” adding, “he ought to let us go out and campaign and get rid of this scam.”

Trump is incorrect about Judge Merchan’s background: he was not appointed by “Democrat politicians.”

In 2006, Republican New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg appointed Merchan to his first judicial post, to the New York City Family Court. In 2009, Chief Administrative Judge Ann Pfau appointed Merchan as Acting Justice to the Supreme Court of New York. Pfau was appointed to her first judicial post by Republican New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

READ MORE: Johnson Would Contest 2024 Election Results Under the Same ‘Circumstances’

Trump also appeared to suggest appointed judges are somehow suspect – despite frequently bragging that he himself appointed three justices to the U.S. Supreme Court, not to mention 234 judges in total he appointed to the federal bench.

Some legal experts believe a system where judges are appointed rather than elected serves justice better.

“The quality of justice suffers when politics invades the judicial sphere, casting doubt on the impartiality of case outcomes and eroding public confidence in our nation’s system of justice,” an article at the American Bar Association reads.

Watch Trump below or at this link.

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