According the Des Moines Register, same sex couples married in Iowa and other states will still be effected by Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, prohibits gays and lesbians from being open and honest about their lives. They can not identify openly as gay or lesbian, and they are prohibited from engaging in same gender sexual behavior. Even a simple conversation with a brief mention of their life will subject them to involuntary discharge.  To add to that already psychologically damaging list, same sex couples who choose to protect their families through their marriage rights in Iowa, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, will be involuntary discharged from the National Guard and other military branches.

Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is also doing a disservice to the United States Military. According to the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, approximately 13,000 service members have been dishonorably discharged because of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Nealry 900 were “mission critical,” such as Arab language specialists (a difficult position to fill).

According to the Williams institute (2007) 4000 people decide not to join the military annually because of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. A Blue Ribbon commission reported in 2008 that the cost of implementing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is $363.8 Million and rising.

75% of Americans support repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.  Most military missions are with coalition forces. Our allies already permit gays and lesbians to serve openly, so our military is already successfully working with openly gay and lesbian forces. 65,000 gay and lesbian military personal are in active service, risking their lives and dieing for the United States, yet we deny them the decency of recognizing who they — who they were born to be.

President Obama promised to overturn Don’t Ask Don’t Tell during the campaign, but he has yet to act on that promise. So for now, anyone who exercises their right to marry the love of their life will face a dishonorable discharge from the military.  Until this policy is overturned, anyone who supports Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is not truthful when they claim to support the troops. They can claim they support the heterosexual troops, but not all the troops — because that is the truth.

If you are on the fence about Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, let me challenge you to try to live like a gay or lesbian in the military.  For this experiment let’s pretend that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell applies to heterosexual service members. For one week do not mention your wife/husband/girlfriend/boyfriend. Remove all evidence of your life at home including pictures of your children, vacation photos, etc. Make sure the clothes you wear, or the way you talk , or walk do not tip anyone off to your heterosexuality.  Manage every movement, thought, and sentence that comes out of your mouth.

Do this for one week and then tell me that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is fair to the service men and women who are risking their lives right this moment in wars throughout the world. Tell me you feel just fine, that it didn’t alter your psychological well being. If you are in the Military, tell me it is okay that your wife/husband/family should not be given any benefits if you were killed. Tell me that’s an American value.

Edit:  I changed dishonerable discharge to involuntary discharge.  I was corrected by a reader on an important legal distinction. Most gays and lesbians recieve involuntary discharges.  A court marshal is required for a dishonerable discharge.

The Washington Post/ABC Poll was the first poll in US history to indicate a majority support for same-sex marriage.  More Americans support marriage equality (49%) than oppose it (46%). Other polls released this week indicate a similar shift in public opinion.  The Republican party has taken notice as well.  There was a 20 point shift towards equality in their own party. McCain’s campaign manager recently told Republicans they should change their policy towards same sex marriage.  Democrats are posturing to use this new data towards their advantage. They have traditionally supported civil rights for gays and lesbians.

There is an old phrase in Iowa during the Presidential caucus season, “So goes Iowa, so goes the nation.” Having marriage equality in Iowa has shifted the focus of the gay rights movement from merely a coastal fight to a civil rights fight that is rooted in America’s heartland. When Massachusetts legalized same sex marriage merely three years ago, the country backlashed with 30 state constitutional amendments limiting equality to all their citizens, notably gays and lesbians. It is clear Americans are warming up to gays and lesbians and the fear tactic strategy no longer works.

Furthermore, I do not think we should underestimate the psychological effect of California’s Proposition 8 on the rest of the country. For the first time in American history, rights were taken away from Americans. Until Propositio 8, rights were denied gays and lesbians that they never had to begin with, but to take away rights was something new entirely. Clearly it did not settle well when rights people once had were stripped away.  The sorrow and outrage on gays and lesbians faces recieved international news coverage, but more intimately people experienced the pain of their coworkers, friends, families, and neighbors in every city, in every neighborhood.  The entire world saw that pain. Most importantly prop 8 generated millions of conversations about LGBT rights and what is at stake. It is possible, that proposition 8 was the best thing to happen to LGBT Americans in a generation.

According to the poll, 53% of Americans now believe same sex marriages from other states should be recognized in their state. Opposing equality is a losing argument.  Politicians that plan to win the hearts and minds of the new generation of voters need to abandon their old discriminatory practices.  They should support equality or they should plan to lose.  At the very least, they can take my mother’s advice, “If they don’t have anything nice to say, they should not say anything at all.”

Click here for a pdf version of the questions and the poll results.

May 17th is the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHO).  The Idaho Challenge aims to end homophobia and transphobia by addressing one of the major causes, the invisibility of LGBT people.  Join the Impact and Gays.com have issued a challenge to gays and lesbians around the world to increase their visibility by submitting a video in their own language.  Watch this to learn more.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xmjk7ma6nPk]

Can he be our Superhero?

Emma Ruby-Sachs from the Huffington Post gave President Obama a D – for his first 100 days in office.  She said, “when it comes to actual change in the lives of LGBT people, nothing has been done.”

Really? I think Sachs is being a little harsh.  When was the last time a President included his LGBT agenda on the Whitehouse website? Obama was the first.  When was the last time a President condemned homophobia? Obama was the first. When was the last time a President campaigned on federal recognition of same sex partnerships? Never. Sachs acknowledges these breakthroughs, but she underestimates the power and value of visibility. Having a President willing to acknowledge us and treat us with dignitity and respect has changed the lives of LGBT Americans in this country.

Hate Crimes Legislation just passed the House moments ago. It is also going to pass the senate.  Obama will sign it into law.  Did the bill make it in for the arbitrary deadline of 100 days? No, but LGBT people will be protected soon, and that’s what is important.

Is progress happening as fast as we would like? Of coarse not. I would love to wave a magic wand and push every piece of legislation through Congress that will secure my equality, but that just isnt’ reality.  Congress is a sluggish beast of a machine. We will be lucky to get two bills through this year.  It would be unprecedented if it did happen, but I bet we can get ENDA through this year too.

We need to wake up about the truth here. Obama does not have the most progressive congress to work with. I think we can safely say the Democratic party is the new center right party.  The Republican party is reserved for the extremist right wing, and frankly we do not have a liberal party any longer.  For LGBT’s to get the rights they want at the speed they want we need a new political party representing the liberal philosophy.

Until then, I am greatful for Obama. He is well aware of the needs of gays and lesbians, and I honestly believe he will deliver on his promises.  Let’s just give him a little more time. I’ll give Obama an A- for class participation and a C for his assignments, for an average grade of Obama a B-.  He is definately above average, works well with others, and has room for improvement.

I spent some time this morning reading Iowa newspapers and feeling a little jealous that I was not home to celebrate with my friends and family. I saw familiar faces in the photographs, like Kim Painter the Johnson Country Recorder who provided my partner and I our paperwork to get married when we were in Iowa just three weeks ago.

Today is the beginning of equality in Iowa.  I can hardly wait to return home again in August to marry my fiance, Joe Brokken.  He and I have been together for 5 1/2 years.  I wonder what it will be like to call him husband instead of the invented term of “partner” used to describe our relationship until now. Will people understand our relationship on a deeper level? Will we?

Unfortunately when we return to Seattle, where we now live and work, our marriage will not be recognized. How strange that a commitment between two people — one that is so profoundly personal and important — can be regulated by the state so negatively. My Iowa friends and neighbors in Iowa will enjoy all the state benefits of marriage and yet in Washington we will have limited Domestic Partnership rights.  The new bill is designed to be an “everything but marriage” bill, but it may not be in effect when we return because of the tax evading carpetbagger Gary Randell’s proposed referendum to overturn the bill.

I will not call Joe my partner any more once we are married. I will call him my husband, even in states that do not recognize our relationship. In time our love will be equal in every state.

But for now I am quietly celebrating  from distance with my friends back home. I am so proud that Iowa is living up to its history as a pioneer in civil rights.  I am so proud that the unexpected can still happen, that Iowa of all places is now an equality state.