“Mr. President, my unit is extremely undermanned.... My commander informed me that the Army cannot afford to lose me."

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COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL: U.S. ALLIES EXPERIENCE ‘SMOOTH TRANSITION’ WITH OPENLY GAY SOLDIERS

The Columbia Law School Sexuality and Gender Law Clinic submitted a report to Congress showing U.S. allies have managed smooth transitions to having gay and lesbian soldiers serve openly in the military.

Based on extensive research into the experiences of Australia, Canada, Israel, and the United Kingdom, the report, entitled “Open Service and Our Allies: A Report on the Inclusion of Openly Gay and Lesbian Servicemembers in U.S. Allies’ Armed Forces,” concludes that successful transitions to gays and lesbians serving openly involved no change in barracks housing or bathrooms.

“‘Open Service and Our Allies’ debunks many myths about the difficulty of transitioning to open service,” says Suzanne B. Goldberg, professor and director of the Sexuality and Gender Law Clinic. “The report reinforces that ending the military’s exclusion of openly gay servicemembers is not only possible but also beneficial to national security.”

In addition, the report found military performance and unit cohesion improved, and discrimination and harassment did not significantly increase.

The report also shows that educational and training programs on sexual orientation, alongside an openness about the relationships of gay and lesbian military personnel, eased the transition to gays serving in most of these countries.

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SLDN POSTS LETTERS FROM LGBT SOLDIERS TO ENCOURAGE REPEAL OF ‘DON’T ASK, DON’T TELL’

Illustrating the human toll that Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) places on the U.S.’s already strained military force, Servicemembers Legal Defense Network has been posting a daily letter to the President from a person impacted by DADT at its website, sldn.org. “Stories from the Frontlines: Letters to President Barack Obama” underscores the urgent need for congressional action and presidential leadership at this critical point in the fight to repeal DADT, according to SLDN.

An active-duty servicemember returning to Baghdad, who is also under investigation after recently being “outed,” wrote one of these letters.

“Mr. President, my unit is extremely undermanned. We’re working around the clock in Baghdad. My commander informed me that the Army cannot afford to lose me. I was told that they would prepare my discharge paperwork, ‘stick it in a manila envelope, and keep it in a desk—for now.’ One moment they wanted to throw me out and the next they are hiding evidence to keep me in,” said the servicemember in his letter to Obama.

In a May 14 statement to the press, SLDN noted that the President’s most recent transmittal to Congress of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011, as sent, does not include language repealing DADT. SLDN has been pushing the President to include repeal in his defense budget proposal as a signal the Administration supports repealing the law this year.  

“This is [President Obama’s] second defense bill without a call for repeal. But there is still an opportunity for the President to engage, and we hope he will seize it soon,” said Aubrey Sarvis, executive director for SLDN. “We urgently need his help in reconciling the differences between the Pentagon and the Hill on the repeal timeline, and he can also begin asking members of Congress to vote for repeal this year.”

SLDN has issued a national action alert urging members and supporters to call Congressional leaders and the White House and tell them to repeal DADT this year. More info: sldn.org.

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EQUALITY FLORIDA DEMANDS APOLOGY FROM OUTED ANTIGAY ‘EXPERT’

Equality Florida, Florida’s leading organization advocating equality for LGBTs, is demanding an apology from the Florida attorney general for using taxpayer dollars to fund testimony from Family Research Council co-founder George Rekers.

Rekers and a cohort were hired as star witnesses and paid $120,000 by Florida attorney general Bill McCollum to defend Florida’s antigay adoption ban. In a widely circulated story first reported by Miami New Times, Rekers was caught in May with a male prostitute at the Miami airport.

“This latest controversy makes it clear that Florida attorney general Bill McCollum must publicly apologize for wasting taxpayers’ money on the outrageously biased and unscientific testimony,” representatives from Equality Florida said in a statement to the press. “No court should ever again consider George Rekers an ‘expert’ on anything, especially the lives gay people.”

The Miami Herald reported that Rekers testified in court that gay men and lesbians “would have less capability of providing the kind of nurturing and secure emotional environment for children.” Rekers further testified that he favored banning anyone from adopting who had more than 18 sex partners during a lifetime, calling the notion “a very good social policy” in a deposition.

Rekers’ animosity extends beyond the gay community when restricting adopting and fostering children. He said he would also consider banning Native Americans from adopting because research shows that they are also at much higher risk of mental illness and substance abuse. “They would tend to hang around each other,” Rekers testified. “So the children would be around a lot of other Native Americans who are . . . doing the same sorts of things.”

“Rekers, a national ‘ex-gay’ leader, was a fraud long before he was caught in Miami,” Equality Florida’s statement continued. “It is disgraceful that the Florida attorney general used taxpayer dollars to compensate this discredited bigot-for-hire.”

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HAWAII POISED TO APPROVE CIVIL UNIONS LAW

The quest for marriage equality took a big step on April 30 when the Hawaii State Legislature passed House Bill 444. The bill, when signed by Governor Linda Lingle, establishes civil unions in Hawaii. 

“In the 1990s, Hawaii began the national conversation about ending gay couples’ exclusion from marriage, and was the first to create a legal status to provide some state-level recognition and protections for same-sex couples,” says Evan Wolfson, executive director of Freedom to Marry. “The legislature’s passage of a civil union bill marks a major step forward in Hawaii’s journey toward fairness and equality, but falls short of the full security and equal protection that come only with the freedom to marry. 

“In the years since the groundbreaking Hawaii marriage case, the experience of other states such as Vermont, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and New Jersey—as well as several countries—has been that civil unions are no substitute for marriage. I urge Governor Lingle to swiftly sign House Bill 444 into law, and [encourage] Hawaii to continue its journey and finish the job by ending the denial of marriage.”

As the June issue of OutSmart went to press, Gov. Lingle said that she had not made up her mind on civil unions, but described the bill passed by the state Legislature as “the equivalent of same-sex marriage.”

“It does appear to me, on reading it, that it really is same-sex marriage, but by a different name,” Gov. Lingle stated at the state GOP convention in Waikiki. “But I want to wait and hear people out.”