Chris Coons Calls for the End of DADT
This Memorial Day weekend, Chris Coons is congratulating the House for passing the bill that would eventually repeal DADT as well as congratulating Senator Ted Kaufman for his YES vote on moving DADT Repeal out of the Senate Armed Services Committee. This is his statement in full:
On the eve of Memorial Day, Chris Coons, New Castle County Executive and Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, hailed the passage of a bill to repeal discrimination based on sexuality in the Armed Forces. Last night, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the amendment to the Defense Authorization bill 234-194. Congressman Mike Castle (R-Del.) voted against the amendment.
“‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ is discrimination, plain and simple,” said Chris. “For far too long, this policy has caused sailors like Dover’s George Christensen to serve in fear of not only the enemy, but also in fear of being summarily discharged. We are at war, and people willing and able to serve, ought to be able to serve – openly – to protect our freedom.”
George Christensen enlisted in the Navy at 17 in 1956. He served for 23 years, including active duty in the Vietnam War, retiring as Lt. Commander in 1979. Soon after retiring, he came out.
“It’s about time we got rid of this policy,” said George. “We have been excluding talented people from service for arbitrary, non-military reasons. In a time of war, it is time common sense prevailed.”
Yesterday the Senate Armed Services Committee also voted on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Senator Ted Kaufman (D-Del.), a member of the committee, voted for repeal. The amendment would become law only after the Pentagon completes a study and President Obama, Defense Secretary Gates, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff certify that a change in policy will not negatively impact the military’s capabilities.
Chris is right — this policy was horrible from the beginning, and is a policy that specifically made gay and lesbian Americans second class citizens when it came to serving the country. In a place where all of us are supposed to have been Created Equal, this second class status was always an un-American way of dealing with this issue.
Unlike Mike Castle, Chris Coons gets that discrimination against any group of Americans is not reflective of our values, and does not help to create a stronger country. But as we talked about yesterday, Mike Castle is in the business of representing his party — not Delawareans — these days.
Chris Coons has put up a petition at his website asking supporters of the repeal of DADT to make our voices heard for standing up for our service men and women and for American values of inclusion — go over and sign it today.
Tags: Chris Coons, DE-Sen
Nice statement by Coons.
As a purely political move – nice move to get into the news cycle.
Kaufman.
The bottom line is Mike Castle voted to preserve Don’t Ask Don’t Tell – a blatantly discriminatory law. My kids are going to look back and ask how our government could allow this kind of law, just as we do now with the laws that discriminated against women and blacks. We’re going to have to explain why conservatives like Mike Castle thought that being gay somehow made someone any less of a person. It’s an embarrassment.
Hear, hear Bobby. Mike Castle believes in rights for some people, but not others.
Fixed — than you, anon.
Of course he does.
One of the things I find so refreshing about Chris is his lifeview that somethings are just plain wrong. He doesn’t mealy mouth around about them. They are wrong and he says they are wrong. Thank you Chris for having the courage to speak out.
Let’s hope that folks remember Castle’s stand on this issue in November. Castle’s blind spot about the righteousness of doing away with this ridiculous practice is very telling to me. It is not difficult to imagine to which base Castle is trying to appeal. Castle needs to go.
Castle is not blind to the righteousness of this issue. That is the problem. He simply feels that his allegiance to the Republican Party trumps what is right for Delaware and what is right for the country.
THAT is why he needs to go.
I don’t know that voters will vote against someone they would have supported, because the candidate opposed repeal of DADT. However, I wouldn’t call a Democratic candidate supporting DADT a courageous act. A Democratic candidate supporting gay marriage would be a courageous act (or political suicide?), but not supporting repeal of DADT.
According to ABC-Washington Post survey’s since July 08 75% of American’s supported allowing gays to serve openly in the military. My guess is most of the 25% opposed are Republicans. Supporting repeal of DADT has not been a courageous act since January 2001 when ABC-Washington Post first showed more American’s support allowing gays to serve openly in the military than oppose it. 62% of American’s supported repeal of DADT in January 2001.
Don’t get me wrong I’m glad Coons supports repeal of DADT, and how Castle can even pretend to be a moderate is beyond my comprehension. I just don’t think anyone candidate whose first public support of repeal of DADT comes in May 2010 can be considered courageous.
does anyone out there know when NCCo first began offering health/retirement benefits to its county workers’ partners equally as to its county workers’ spouses?