Phoning your Senators to support ending DADT Now

[Andy Velez]

Personally I want to be certain that when I sign up to serve I can sure there will be out queers there to greet me when I hit the barracks.

This is the e I just received from Human Rights Campaign. Please work those phones!

Andy


Dear friend,

URGENT: Our moment on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is NOW!

The Senate must take action before they leave – and anti-equality lawmakers take office.

Tell your senators to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" this week.

Call the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121 to contact your senators.

Then click here to report your call.
 
The push to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" has reached a fever pitch. And this week could make or break it.

Years of work could boil down to what happens this week. The Senate's "lame duck" session begins today – our last, best hope to end the discrimination this year.

When the new Congress shows up in January, the House will be under staunchly anti-LGBT leadership. We have no time to waste.

Today, as we launch full-page newspaper ads across the country, we need tens of thousands of supporters to back up those ads by joining HRC and the Courage Campaign to call on every single senator to end the discrimination NOW!

Call the Capitol switchboard now at 202-224-3121, tell them where you live, and ask them to connect you to your senators' offices. Tell them "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" must end BEFORE you leave and the new Congress takes over.

After you hang up, please click here and let us know you made the calls.

The last time the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" came up for a vote in the Senate, Sen. John McCain led Republicans in a filibuster of the national defense spending bill that contains the repeal. They blocked it from an up-or-down vote – even though nearly 8 in 10 Americans now favor repealing the law.

Before time runs out, we need Senate Democrats to bring the defense bill to the floor and we need Republicans to stop threatening to derail the entire thing – including critical military equipment and pay raises – just to keep this discriminatory law on the books.

Is it just me, or is it completely absurd that Senate Republicans would hold troops' funding hostage, just so they can ensure that lesbian and gay soldiers have to keep lying or be fired?

The ads we're launching today call out this hypocrisy for what it is: bigotry masked as patriotism.

It's critical that every single senator hears from us today. Even if your senators are already with us on this issue they need to know that their constituents have their backs as they stand up for what's right.

And no matter where your senators stand, speaking out today sends a bold message: It's going to take a lot more than a few anti-gay leaders in Congress to make us give up this fight. As long as injustice is written into our laws, we will not rest.

Join HRC and the Courage Campaign: call your senators through the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121 and tell them to act this week. Click here to let us know that you made the call.

Momentum for repeal is high. President Obama has called on the Senate to act during this short session – an important first step of the many needed for him to fulfill the pledge he made in the State of the Union to end this law. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and military chaplains are also speaking out.

Still, repealing this law is no easy task. But if brave men and women are willing to risk their lives while hiding who they are, we must be unafraid to fail – and always, unceasingly, unafraid to fight.

Never giving up,


Joe Solmonese
President



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[J.R.E.]

I also received the same email

For  those in Florida:

Call both your senators now – Sen. Bill Nelson at (202) 224-5274 and Sen. George LeMieux at (202) 224-3041 – and tell them "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" must end BEFORE you leave and the new Congress takes over.

I also had some snail mail form The Human Rights Campaign and received my HRC sticker for the car. 

Ray

[ElZorro]

I'm not current on the proposed changes to this legislation. Does anyone know if a repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" will actually allow gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military?

The reason I ask is that prior to DADT, they were not allowed to serve. In fact, one of the disqualifying questions on the enlistment application was (paraphrase) "Do you currently, have you ever, or do you intend in the future to engage in homosexual acts?" DADT was Bill Clinton's broken promise to allow gays and lesbians to openly serve. Instead, DADT created a prohibition for "search and destroy" operations that actively sought out gays and lesbians so they could be processed for discharge. If this prohibition is repealed will there be anything put in place that allows gays and lesbians to serve or would the repeal simply remove the prohibition to pursue them?

[woodshere]

I have accepted the fact that contacting my Senator is futile.  No matter how many calls or letters I write, Sen Mitch McConnell is never going change his vote.  (Sen Jim Bunning is just kinda in his own world these days and pretty much useless to either party) I always get a letter returned that ends with something to the fact that although we don't agree on the issue, he appreciates hearing from his constituents and some other bullshit.  After the last DADT vote ended in failure I wrote a scathing letter to him that I ended with telling him that I did not want a response justifying his reasons for continuing to discriminate against gays and lesbians and his appreciation meant nothing to me as he does not value the contributions gays and lesbians make on a daily basis to this country.  I haven't heard from him or for that matter the FBI or IRS.  I now try to find other avenues to make a difference.

[Andy Velez]

I hear ya, Woods.

Rock on!

[tednlou2]

Like Woods, Mitch is my senator, too.  Bunning is still in place for the lame duck with Paul coming in.  I've written to both and got similar responses.  But, I will give it another shot.  Doesn't hurt, right. 

John McCain's actions on this issue are ridiculous.  He first said he would listen to Pentagon leadership.  Then, he changed that.  Then, he said he would listen to the study the military did.  Now, he says it was leaked and we should have hearings.  His wife does commercials for NOH8 saying gays cannot serve and that is a bad thing.  Then, she tweets that she supports her husband's views on DADT.  Maybe he gave her a good beating?  I hope NOH8 pulls her from their ads.  McCain is threatening to filibuster.  I think he is totally loosing it.  I think those presidential loses have really done a number on him.  In the Senate, all a senator has to do is threaten to filibuster.  They don't really make them do it anymore--standing there for hours talking and reading the phone book.  They should make him do it! 

If this doesn't get done, Obama is going to have problems with gays, I believe. 

[tednlou2]

DEVELOPING STORY.....11/18/2010

It appears there may be some light at the end of the tunnel to repeal DADT.  It is being reported that Republican senators Lisa Murkowski, Collins, and Lugar have said they will vote with Dems to repeal DADT.  That would give Dems the 60 votes needed to stop the McCain filibuster.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show/#40264622