Gillibrand wins Senate hearing on military policy on gays
New York’s Sen. href=”/topics/Kirsten_Gillibrand”>Kirsten Gillibrand said Monday she had won the commitment of the Senate Armed Services Committee to hold its first hearing this fall on the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays in the military.
The announcement is unusual because Gillibrand does not sit on the panel and did not push the issue in the last Congress, when she served on the House Armed Services Committee.
But the agreement by Senate Armed Services chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) capped a campaign Gillibrand has been waging in the last few weeks to scrap or suspend the controversial policy that has led the Pentagon to discharge thousands of gays and lesbians since 1994.
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Gay seniors embrace a newfound openness
Marvin Levin was speaking to his psychiatrist in November 2003. The conversation halted briefly as Levin looked away, collecting a thought that had waited decades to surface.
“You know what?” he said, looking up at his doctor. “I’m gay.”
At age 61, married more than 30 years, this was an unlikely admission.
“It was the first time I’d ever put words to that,” Levin said. “It was like an epiphany. And then I looked back on my life and said, ‘You dummy, of course you are.’ ” Levin, now 67, grew up in Chicago, part of a conventional Jewish family. He found himself interested in the gay lifestyle — still highly taboo at the time — but resolved that he was “straight but curious.”
Conforming to the social mores of the time, he married in his mid-20s. “I can’t really say I was madly in love. This was a woman I knew and we had the same sets of values and beliefs. It seemed a good fit.”
Together they had two sons, were active in their synagogue, entertained regularly and worked through the ups and downs of marriage.
“I was Mr. Straight,” Levin said. “There were certain things in life that you do, and I would just go ahead and do them. I was fascinated by this other world. The gay world had this attraction. But I just never did anything with it. It was just there.”
In the 1970s, Levin began suffering from depression. He went into counseling and got on medication but could never identify the source of his unhappiness. Until that day in 2003, in his psychiatrist’s chair.
“My wife at first was shocked,” he said. “But she was also glad I’d finally figured out why at times I was non-functional. She’s a wonderful woman and was very supportive of me through all of this.”
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