Actually, I never really left. Just took a break and tried to work through some blogger's block. Funny, that. I had so many things to talk about that I just couldn't focus on anything.
So here's what stuck in my craw this week.
This unspeakably hot man is Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach.
He's the son and brother of Air Force officers, has served our country honorably for 18 years, and is the winner of nine air medals for distinguished service in flight. One of those was for heroism during the capture of the Baghdad International Airport. Yes, kids. That means that he really is a documented and certified American Hero©.
And he's being kicked out of the Air Force for being gay.
No, he didn't come out. He was ratted out by some low-life asswipe. He played by the Don't Ask Don't Tell rules. For 18 years he didn't tell. He kept his life private. Say what you want about the value of coming out... it's different for military folk. But now he's being drummed out of the job he loves... a job he's been doing honorably for you and for me for 18 years. And, God love him, he took that square on the chin, came out to his mom and sister, went on Rachael Maddow's show last week, and started to fight.
Listen, kittens. We're 8 years into two wars (one or both of which may or may not be 100% legal... but that's another discussion). We're scrambling to keep skilled servicemembers on active duty. 70% of Americans think that gay and lesbian people should be able to serve openly in our military. Obama promised during his campaign to end the ban, or at least issue an executive order stopping the active enforcement of Don't Ask, Don't Tell pending legislation to rescind that bigoted law. And THIS is what the President and the Pentagon are doing?
Exactly what kind of pussy is afraid to serve with a gay man? What do these little bitches think Lt. Col. Fehrenbach is going to do to them in the shower? Bitch please. You should BE so lucky. And honey, he's been there for 18 years. If he was gonna pull some bullshit, he'd have done it by now. What he DID do was serve with unequivocal excellence and heroism for the better part of two decades. Maybe that's the problem... straight guys and their itty bitty
Okay fine. Slim Jim has been in office for only four months. He has wars to wage, a global financial meltdown to manage, and Supreme Court justices to nominate. I get it. His plate is full. People say we should be patient... that we should wait... that we should give him a chance.
I've been doing that. I've been patient. But really... DADT is low-hanging fruit. The vast majority of the American public supports its repeal (and doesn't the military work for us?). An executive order halting the process wouldn't trump the law of the land, it would just stop the hemorrhaging and give lawmakers a chance to breathe while they craft the appropriate legislation for its repeal. It would also shut the GLBT activists up for a second.
But is that what Slim Jim is doing? Of course not. The only public statements he's made about any issue related to GLBT equality have been jokes. Jokes. First making a joke about marrying David Axelrod in Iowa (at the White House Correspondents' Dinner), and most recently at a Democratic fundraiser in L.A. where he quipped that after a gay rights protester outside yelled that he should keep his promises, he wondered what promise the guy was talking about.
Um, how about any of them? They're listed on the White House website. Maybe Sasha can pull that up for you on her laptop and you can read them while she finishes her breakfast.
(Thanks to a correction from an anonymous commenter, it appears that the comment outside the L.A. fundraiser may have been shouted by someone expressing their desire for Obama to acknowledge the Armenian genocide rather than by a marriage equality advocate. I didn't know that there even was an Armenian genocide, but then again I'm hardly a historian. It was a horrific war crime committed by the Ottoman empire around 1915. Not sure what Obama's supposed to do about that almost 100 years later, and it's not clear that his joke was made with the knowledge of the questioner's affiliation. I stand tentatively corrected on that point, but my point about Obama's deafening silence and documented jokes at our expense still stands.)
There's never a convenient time to extend equal civil and human rights to any minority. Never. If he's waiting for a perfect political and social climate to make good on his promise to be our "fiercest advocate", then he might as well wait for a flying unicorn to drop ice cream turds on the White House lawn. Not gonna happen. Man up, Mr. President. Our patience is wearing rather thin. Much more stalling, silence, and insensitive jokes, and we'll start thinking we've been bamboozled in the most craven and calculated of ways.
Or maybe we're thinking that already.
