The Lying Has Got To Stop

Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT) was a mistake. It is a failed policy. It must be changed. Now.

Let's take a look under the hood and see why this junker needs to be hauled away to the scrap yard.

Let's start with the lies.

Military service is supposed to be about honor and duty. What part of honor and duty excludes integrity? DADT promotes lying.

If you are one of the estimated 66,000 gay and lesbian members of our military (active duty and reserves), you must live a lie every day, and must check your integrity at the door of the recruitment office, and then continue your lies throughout your service.

What national security purpose does this serve or promote? Of course, there are no national security purposes served by DADT, and in fact, there are reported incidents where a soldier's sexual orientation was used as blackmail to compromise national security.

Those who disagree with my premise that DADT must be repealed often cite the "troop morale" excuse or the mythical "advances in the foxhole" fears as crutches for their homophobia.

Let's look at the real threats posed by keeping this policy in effect.

Denial. No, it's not a river in Egypt, it's the cornerstone of those who want to keep DADT in effect.

To say that this policy must be retained denies existence of the following facts:

1. Our coalition partners fighting with the U.S. in Afghanistan and Iraq allow gays and lesbians to serve openly in their military. Great Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Israel and Spain are just some of the 25 Countries that allow gays to openly serve. So, as a country, our troops are willing to fight along side gay soldiers as coalition forces, but won't do so with those who have sworn their allegiance to defend the United States? How does that make sense?

2. We have already spent nearly $500 Million Dollars to discharge gay and lesbian soldiers and to train their replacements. We simply wasted this money. The military spends between $22,000 and $43,000 per person to replace those soldiers discharged under DADT. How does that make sense (or should I say "cents")?

3. Government Contractors whom we are paying at much higher cost to perform support services for the military, are hiring DADT discharged soldiers and employing them to perform the same services that they were performing while serving in the military--now, only at a much higher cost to the taxpayers. So, let me see if I understand--- the taxpayers paid to train them, then paid to discharge them, then paid to train their replacements and then paid a contractor to put the discharged soldier back in the theatre at a much higher cost.) This only makes sense to the Contractors.

4. We are not meeting our military recruitment goals annually, and yet we are eliminating qualified candidates from applying for service. Lifting the ban would allow many of the more than 12,000 trained soldiers who have already been discharged to re-enlist. It has been estimated that more than 36,000 applicants are ready to apply for enlistment as soon as the policy is repealed. So, rather than take more qualified applicants, the enlistment standards have been lowered, and we are taking felons now. Does this make sense?

5. We are less safe as a result of the discharge of mission-critical intelligence specialists and Arab linguists who have been discharged under DADT, especially during a time of war. Does this make sense?

6. The unnecessary discharge of trained capable soldiers under DADT has contributed to the necessity of implementing Stop Loss (which prevents soldiers and Marines from exiting the military at the end of their term of service) and has increased the number of multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan where some are on their 4th, 5th, 6th or 7th deployments. Does this make sense?

7. No one being fired upon in combat is thinking about sex, notwithstanding the frequent use of the "F" Word in a hailstorm of bullets. Gay and lesbian soldiers would be subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Feared unwanted sexual advances would be punishable under current military law, just the same as the hundreds of heterosexual harassment and assault cases are currently handled in military tribunals.

8. Gays and lesbians aren't trying to recruit straight people to be their partners. Period.

We don't need any more delays. We don't need any slanted survey questions to be analyzed by the Pentagon to know that this is a failed policy which needs to be changed.

Come on Congress, get your spines out of the closet, so to speak, and repeal DADT. NOW.

We can't afford any more of this foolishness.

Put It On The Ballot NOW!

So it looks like we are finally going to have a Special Session of the Florida Legislature more than 90 days after the Gusher in the Gulf punched us in the gut.

And what do we hear from the President of the Senate (Mike Haridopolos) and the Speaker of the House (Dean Cannon)? "We don't need this. The law in Florida already bans drilling in State waters..."

Oh yea? Do you think we don't remember 2009 when the Florida House brought up and passed a bill to allow drilling right off the coast, in state waters, WITHOUT ANY DEBATE OR COMMITTEE HEARINGS?

Only common sense in the Florida Senate in 2009 saved us from this folly. And common sense in the Florida Senate is a fleeting thing (and often a rarity).

Before the BP Disaster struck, the incoming aforementioned leaders of the 2011 Legislature announced that 2011 would be the year that near shore drilling would be pushed through. The House was teed up and ready to go--they already sold us out once--and the incoming Senate President was a Drill Baby Drill proponent. They made no bones about their desire to move this to the top of their agenda and get it passed in 2011.

Only after the Gusher started lapping up on our beaches did Rep. Cannon and Sen. Haridopolos slightly moderate their views.

Now they are opposing the Special Session and are hiding behind the legal fiction that they can't change that law that now protects us. Their sound bite logic is that Floridians don't need a constitutional amendment because the law already prohibits what the Amendment would prohibit.

Of course, that is until the Legislature changes it!

That's why we need a Constitutional Amendment that can't be changed by the Legislature.

They also say that the Special Session will be too expensive. Actually, it's just the opposite--we can't afford to wait for the regular Legislative Session to address all the issues affecting the State because of this environmental disaster. Just ask the Panhandle Counties who are trying to deal with it now.

The voters of Florida need to weigh in and pass a Constitutional Amendment to ban near shore drilling, forever. We now know how devastating this is to jobs and the incomes of Floridians.

Yet, the reluctance of the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate to even respond to Charlie Crist's call for a Special Session tells you all you need to know.

This subject is NOT off their agenda.

Remember when the Legislature was beholden to the commercial fishing lobby and a grassroots effort was undertaken to ban gill netting in Florida waters? The results have been tremendous for our juvenile fish stocks which were needlessly killed in gill nets. Commercial fishermen adapted.

We've always lived without drilling near shore. Heck, we won't even have to adapt to any change--just try to ensure some protection for our environment to the extent that we as citizens can.

All of the reasons relied upon by the Florida House in passing their drilling bill in 2009 have been exposed as lies. It's now abundantly clear to everyone that the oil industry doesn't have new, safe technology. They have no contingency plans for clean ups. They are more interested in manipulating the facts to cover up their misdeeds than they are in paying claims and cleaning up the toxic mess.

So, why would we ever want to expand that right off our mangroves and beaches?

So, it's time to tell your Legislators that you want them to put this Amendment on the ballot in November for an up or down vote by Floridians.

Do we ever want drilling rigs within 10 miles of our shores?

And, oh yea, by the way, you can remind your Legislators that there are many more issues for our Legislature to start working on immediately, because it is clear that we are going to have an even more severe budget shortfall from the loss of sales tax revenues as a result of this disaster.

Make some noise. Pay attention to this Special Session. Take note of how all of our elected representatives vote during the Special session and act accordingly to get the right people elected in November who want to protect our natural resources and our jobs.