"Don't Ask, Don't Tell," a policy based on animus toward gays,
is losing support in the military if not in Washington, the Boston
Globe
reports:
A growing body of evidence that attitudes have changed within the ranks. A recent study by the Naval Postgraduate School found that a majority of military personnel felt comfortable around openly gay colleagues....
Overall, the number of soldiers facing discharge under the policy has dropped steadily-from 1,273 in 2001 to 906 in 2002 and 787 in 2003, the most recent year available....
[L]awyers who represent [gay] soldiers...attributed the change both to a growing acceptance of gays within the ranks and to the military's need to keep more highly trained soldiers in the Iraq War.
But the Democrats won't make an issue of the ban, and Republicans will use their support of it as another way to energize the "base."
DADT, in fact, is one more example of how both parties use
hot-button emotional appeals to the easily frightened and poorly
informed (i.e., blocking Social Security reform and opposing freer
trade on the left, blocking immigration reform and trying to amend
the consitution to ban gay marriage on the right) to keep their
respective bases crazy-angry at all times.
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03/12/06 - 03/18/06