DADT was “based on nothing” but “our own prejudices and our own fears.” (1)
Sam Nunn:
1.) Homophobe
2.) Endless hearings
3.) Homophobe
4.) Stacked the deck during congressional hearings with anti-gay testimony.
Saying that Sam Nunn had any interest in fairness for gays in the military is like saying, "Dick Cheney likes freedom and information." :hurts:
...the assiduous lobbying by the religious right, foreshadowing their subsequent efforts against marriage equality; the dramatic congressional hearings and press conferences held by Nunn, culminating deep inside the USS Baton Rouge submarine to show just how tight the quarters were. But the most amazing revelation? Even as they ignored a 500-page RAND Corp. report commissioned by the Pentagon showing that open service wouldn’t affect military readiness, generals watched a video circulated by a Christian producer that graphically described gay sexual practices. (2)
http://www.advocate.com/letters_detail_ektid53895.aspSam Nunn, the great homophobe who rebelled when President Clinton tried to normalize military service for gays. It was Nunn who forced the Don't Ask, Don't Tell compromise. He first waged a nationally televised campaign against gays in the military, visiting submarines to interview military people who, put on the spot, said they were anti-gay, and so he did much for the cause of homophobia.
http://tech.mit.edu/V113/N16/nunn.16w.htmlVolume 113 >> Issue 16 : Tuesday, March 30, 1993PDF of This Issue
Nunn Offers Compromise on Military's Gay Ban
By Martin Kasindorf
Newsday
WASHINGTON
As the Senate Armed Services Committee began hearings Monday on President Clinton's plan to end the prohibition of gays and lesbians serving in the military, committee chairman Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) offered an olive branch on the explosive issue.
Nunn, while siding with the uniformed Pentagon leadership against Clinton on maintaining the longtime ban, suggested in a "CBS This Morning" interview that an interim six-month compromise reached in January could be made permanent.
If the White House agreed, such an arrangement would continue a new policy of not asking would-be recruits about their sexual orientation. But service members who then went public about their orientation would be subject to administrative discharge, as they were for decades before Clinton announced plans to change the policy by executive order.
Clinton ordered the Pentagon to draft an order by July, preventing discharge for the mere status of being gay but subjecting all service members to a rigid code of personal conduct.
Nunn, foreseeing problems of equal treatment for "hand-holding," "kissing" gays and non-gays under a new code of conduct, said that "if people keep their private behavior private, if they don't declare and advertise their private behavior," they are currently able to stay in the service as long as they perform their duties. The interim compromise "may be a pretty good place to end up," he said.
Gay-rights groups, who attended Monday's low-key opening hearing in large numbers, rejected Nunn's overture. Thomas Stoddard, coordinator of the gay and lesbian Campaign for Military Service, said that under the proposed compromise, efforts to "hunt people out of the service" for their private views would continue. "That is a civil rights question," Stoddard said. "The principle here must be parity -- treatment based only on performance."
(1) Creators of Military Gay Ban Tell Author It Was "Based on Nothing"
http://www.palmcenter.org/press/dadt/releases/Creators+ ...
(2)
http://www.palmcenter.org/press/dadt/in_print/Battling+... Battling the Military Ban
In a bracing new account, historian Nathaniel Frank shows how “don’t ask, don’t tell” has utterly failed.
Source: The Advocate at advocate.com