Troops question impact if gay ban is lifted
(Washington) Troops attending the first meeting of its kind on ending the ban on gays in the military said Tuesday they want to know what changes were in store for them if gays were allowed to serve openly.
Picked at random and assembled in the Pentagon auditorium, about 350 rank-and-file troops asked the leaders of a new working group whether bunking arrangements would change and if the spouses of gay personnel would be given military family benefits, among other issues.
The answers to those questions aren’t expected until the end of the year, when the working group releases its findings on the impact openly gay service might have on the force.
Officials say they will spend the next several months reaching out to troops and their families in focus groups and meetings like the Tuesday forum to determine what concerns they’ll have to address.
Attendees of the Tuesday session said that one female Marine stated that bunking with a lesbian would be the same as being told to share a room with a man. A soldier said he didn’t want to wade into the political debate and that he would follow orders.
Another service member asked if a gay service member who gets married – now forbidden under law – would receive military family benefits.
At one point, a moderator asked how many troops believed they have served with a gay person. About half the people in the audience raised their hands.
Attendees described the meeting on condition of anonymity because they said they were not authorized to speak publicly on the issue.
President Barack Obama has called on Congress to lift the ban. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said a repeal of the 17-year-old “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy is inevitable. But he says he wants to do it in a way that would mitigate any risk to unit effectiveness.
Accordingly, Gates has assigned his chief legal counsel, Jeh Johnson, and Army Gen. Carter Ham to lead a working group on the subject. The results of their review are due Dec. 1.
One issue officials have been wrestling with is how to gauge the opinion of gay service members without forcing them to break the law by disclosing their sexual orientation.
Officials say it is likely that a third party will be hired to help survey the force and reach out to gay troops.
Troops question impact if gay ban is lifted
(Washington) Troops attending the first meeting of its kind on ending the ban on gays in the military said Tuesday they want to know what changes were in store for them if gays were allowed to serve openly.
Picked at random and assembled in the Pentagon auditorium, about 350 rank-and-file troops asked the leaders of a new working group whether bunking arrangements would change and if the spouses of gay personnel would be given military family benefits, among other issues.
The answers to those questions aren’t expected until the end of the year, when the working group releases its findings on the impact openly gay service might have on the force.
Officials say they will spend the next several months reaching out to troops and their families in focus groups and meetings like the Tuesday forum to determine what concerns they’ll have to address.
Attendees of the Tuesday session said that one female Marine stated that bunking with a lesbian would be the same as being told to share a room with a man. A soldier said he didn’t want to wade into the political debate and that he would follow orders.
Another service member asked if a gay service member who gets married – now forbidden under law – would receive military family benefits.
At one point, a moderator asked how many troops believed they have served with a gay person. About half the people in the audience raised their hands.
Attendees described the meeting on condition of anonymity because they said they were not authorized to speak publicly on the issue.
President Barack Obama has called on Congress to lift the ban. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said a repeal of the 17-year-old “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy is inevitable. But he says he wants to do it in a way that would mitigate any risk to unit effectiveness.
Accordingly, Gates has assigned his chief legal counsel, Jeh Johnson, and Army Gen. Carter Ham to lead a working group on the subject. The results of their review are due Dec. 1.
One issue officials have been wrestling with is how to gauge the opinion of gay service members without forcing them to break the law by disclosing their sexual orientation.
Officials say it is likely that a third party will be hired to help survey the force and reach out to gay troops.
Troops question impact if gay ban is lifted
(Washington) Troops attending the first meeting of its kind on ending the ban on gays in the military said Tuesday they want to know what changes were in store for them if gays were allowed to serve openly.
Picked at random and assembled in the Pentagon auditorium, about 350 rank-and-file troops asked the leaders of a new working group whether bunking arrangements would change and if the spouses of gay personnel would be given military family benefits, among other issues.
The answers to those questions aren’t expected until the end of the year, when the working group releases its findings on the impact openly gay service might have on the force.
Officials say they will spend the next several months reaching out to troops and their families in focus groups and meetings like the Tuesday forum to determine what concerns they’ll have to address.
Attendees of the Tuesday session said that one female Marine stated that bunking with a lesbian would be the same as being told to share a room with a man. A soldier said he didn’t want to wade into the political debate and that he would follow orders.
Another service member asked if a gay service member who gets married – now forbidden under law – would receive military family benefits.
At one point, a moderator asked how many troops believed they have served with a gay person. About half the people in the audience raised their hands.
Attendees described the meeting on condition of anonymity because they said they were not authorized to speak publicly on the issue.
President Barack Obama has called on Congress to lift the ban. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said a repeal of the 17-year-old “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy is inevitable. But he says he wants to do it in a way that would mitigate any risk to unit effectiveness.
Accordingly, Gates has assigned his chief legal counsel, Jeh Johnson, and Army Gen. Carter Ham to lead a working group on the subject. The results of their review are due Dec. 1.
One issue officials have been wrestling with is how to gauge the opinion of gay service members without forcing them to break the law by disclosing their sexual orientation.
Officials say it is likely that a third party will be hired to help survey the force and reach out to gay troops.
Spanish clinic and travel agency offer gay marriage and fertility deal
As niche package tours go it is one of the most original and precisely targeted. As of this week, British lesbians are being invited to dig into their pockets, catch a flight to the Spanish costas and come back either pregnant, married or both.
The offer comes from a fertility clinic and a gay and lesbian travel agency, which have launched joint package tours to what has now become one of the most socially tolerant countries in Europe.
Together they have spotted a growing trend among British lesbians, who increasingly travel to clinics in liberal Spain for insemination treatment, which has become more difficult in Britain since sperm donors lost the right to remain anonymous in 2005.
“We noticed the increase in British women coming to us as soon as the law was changed,” said Dr Rafael Bernabeu, founder of the Instituto Bernabeu clinic in Alicante, eastern Spain. “Here we can still offer that anonymity, so people are coming to us.”
Bernabeu said his clinic saw 30 British women a month. About 40% of British women seeking donor insemination were single and many were lesbians. “We don’t ask questions about people’s sexuality, so I can’t give exact figures,” he said. “But often they come with same-sex partners or simply tell us that they are lesbians.”
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Deb Price: More Republicans embrace gay equality
Rumblings of change are beginning to be heard from deep inside the Republican Party.
The gay Log Cabin Republicans’ recent national convention offered a tantalizing peek at a possible not-so-distant future when the Republican Party has finally — and firmly — turned the corner and embraced equality for gay Americans.
Marquee speakers were Steve Schmidt, former senior campaign strategist for 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain, and former New Jersey Gov. Christie Todd Whitman, a founder of the moderate Republican Leadership Council.
Representing the youth vote that will determine the GOP’s fate was Meghan McCain, 24-year-old daughter of Sen. McCain and a contributor at TheDailyBeast.com.
Each supports marriage for same-sex couples.
That puts them firmly in the minority of today’s Republicans, but definitely not of future Republicans if the party is to grow, appeal to young voters, and be competitive beyond the south.
“We were crushed by the Obama campaign with voters under 30,” Schmidt pointed out.
What distinguishes the youth vote, he continued, is “a greater acceptance of people who find happiness in relationships with members of the same sex.” One day, a majority of Americans will follow, and, he added, “sooner or later the Republican Party will catch up.”
Whitman, tackling the problem of broadening the party without scaring away social conservatives, said, “It’s not about saying to the Christian conservatives, ‘There is no place for you.’ It’s about saying, ‘Would you please stop saying there’s no place for us?’”
Afterward, Whitman told me, “It’s not going to threaten my marriage to have a gay couple marry.” She wants the issue out of the party platform.
Meghan McCain was blunter: “Republicans’ using Twitter and Facebook isn’t going to miraculously make people think we’re cool again. Breaking free from obsolete positions and providing real solutions that don’t divide our nation further will.”
It’d be easy to dismiss the trio of speakers as preaching to choir, but encouraging rumblings are coming from elsewhere as well:
Gay Republicans point with pride to the fact that eight Republicans in the Vermont Legislature helped override the governor’s veto of gay marriage.
Meanwhile, gay Iowans are set to begin marrying on Monday, thanks to a ruling written by a Republican appointee. A University of Iowa Hawkeye Poll conducted just before the April 3 unanimous Iowa Supreme Court ruling for gay marriage found that 58 percent of Iowans aged 18 to 29 favor gay marriage, 17 percent prefer civil unions, and only 16 percent oppose both.
That means fewer than one out of five favors the official Republican position.
Contrast that with Iowans 65 or older: 18 percent favor gay marriage, 31 percent civil unions and 42 percent neither.
If you were running a company that hopes to still be around in 20 years, which customers would you appeal to?
That question is being asked in elite Republican circles. In a survey of its Republican political insiders, National Journal magazine found in its most recent issue that only 50 percent think their party should oppose gay marriage, while 8 percent think the party should embrace it and 37 percent say it should steer clear of the issue.
Speaking freely behind the cloak of anonymity, one Republican insider said, “Perception of complete hostility to all gay rights is killing the GOP among voters under 29. Evolve or perish, Republicans.”
A growing number of Republican thinkers are concluding that their party’s future hinges on finding a way to comfortably embrace gay rights.
Reach Deb Price at dprice@detnews.com or (202) 662-8736
See More Republicans embrace gay equality
The Detroit News
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Gay Former Clinton Aide Lashes Out at Obama Over Warren
It’s becoming clear that while the gay rights movement’s leaders are thrilled with Obama’s invitation to Gene Robinson to join inauguration festivities, lots of its rank and file are still deeply distressed over Rick Warren giving the invocation on Inauguration Day. As a reporter, it’s often tricky figuring out if a movement’s—any movement, from the Christian right to the antiwar left—spokespeople are truly representing whom they claim to speak for.
Without polls, it’s really impossible to know.
But I’m getting more and more angry comments and E-mails from members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community furious with their nominal leaders. This E-mail from a former Clinton White House aide who requested anonymity captures the lingering anger over Warren:
. . . [T]he problem here goes well beyond Warren’s incendiary language equating gay marriage with incest. He is what he is. The greater problem lies in the President-Elect’s cruel calculation that this insult and offense to gay America is acceptable collateral damage for whatever plus he sees in the suck-up to Warren, giving profile and platform to this mega-merchant of discrimination in the first program agenda item during the first official act of his first day in office. I was one of the 12 first-ever openly gay White House staff members to take up work the day following President Clinton’s inauguration. His respect for gay Americans was evident even when setbacks and disappointments slowed the change agenda, and he certainly did not deliberately nor unnecessarily scheme to sell out gay Americans on his first day in office to score points with opponents. Ordinary gay Americans will need to hold this new Administration to the tenets of its campaign and to the idealism of its Inaugural language — and to a fundamental expectation for respect. The Warren invitation remains a disgrace and a blemish on day one of the new Administration. Shame on Obama.
For a lot of LGBT folks, the heartburn over Warren will linger awhile. But what if Obama delivers on a major LGBT political goal in his first term, something like ending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” like the president-elect’s spokesman recently promised? It’s hard to imagine the current gay ambivalence over Obama outlasting such a huge advance for the LGBT cause. The reality of policy would quickly overwhelm symbolic concerns.
See Gay Former Clinton Aide Lashes Out at Obama Over Warren
U.S. News & World Report, DC
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Obama Appoints First High-Level Gay Official For Environmental Council
WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama has selected a deputy mayor of Los Angeles to lead the White House Council on Environmental Quality, transition officials said Wednesday.
Nancy Sutley is the first prominent member of the gay and lesbian community to earn a senior role in the Democrat’s new administration.
With many of his top White House and Cabinet posts filled, Obama now is focusing on fleshing out his natural resources and environment team, and could formally introduce his choices for interior secretary, energy secretary and environmental protection agency chief within weeks if not days.
Two transition officials disclosed Sutley’s selection on the condition of anonymity because Obama had not yet made the announcement.
See Obama Appoints First High-Level Gay Official For Environmental Council
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NYPD hunts for suspects in anti-gay, anti-Hispanic crime
Jose Sucuzhanay was attacked as he walked arm-in-arm with his 38-year-old brother early Sunday in Brooklyn. He had been listed in critical condition after undergoing brain surgery at Elmhurst Hospital.
Family members held a news conference at midday Tuesday outside the Queens hospital to say he was clinging to life and the family had to make an important decision about what to do.
A law enforcement official, however, said that Sucuzhanay had been declared brain dead and was taken off life support Tuesday. He spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.
The three assailants were still being sought.
The attack came less than three weeks after seven Long Island teenagers were charged in the fatal stabbing of another immigrant from Ecuador. Prosecutors said the defendants had been hanging out with friends when someone suggested they go find a Hispanic person to attack.
See NYPD hunts for suspects in anti-gay, anti-Hispanic crime
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