Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Don't Enforce, Don't Discriminate

I'm sure you all know by now that Federal Judge Virginia Phillips issued an injunction last week that prohibits the Department of Defense from enforcing their discriminatory Don't Ask Don't Tell policy.

The Government then requested that she stay her order pending their appeal of her decision and today she denied that request. All of which means that, for now at least, the United States military is required to allow gay and lesbian service members to serve openly!

That's a huge step forward for gay rights, even if it's not yet an overall victory against this particular means of discrimination. All of this could have happened in January of 2009 with a single stroke of President Obama's pen, of course, and it's ridiculous that this administration continues to drag their feet on this, even now.

Check out author/blogger Matthew Rettenmund's account (with video) of Lt. Dan Choi re-enlisting in the army this afternoon as an openly gay man.