Another Wall Comes A’ Tumbling Down–DADT Repealed.

Cross posted @ the Atheist Oasis

Don't ask, don't tell, just keep it all to yourself
And there's something about those blue eyes
And the sweet, sweet smell of a summer night
It makes me forget whoever it is I should be remembering
Remembering now. – Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, by Shut Up And Deal

It’s been an eventful year. Proposition 8 got voted into California legislature, and is now ruled unconstitutional. And now, another discriminatory practice, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is out the window.

There are still hurdles to be leaped. There is for instance, the ban of gay men giving blood. There is institutionalized homophobia in just about any country you can name (excepting the more secular ones).

In fact, homosexuality in the military was once sanctioned by Plato, yet widely discriminated against over the centuries. And it comes as no surprise, that the foremost opponents of the repealing of DADT are…drum roll please…a bunch of neurotic and repressed religionists:

Despite an outpouring of calls, emails and faxes, Illinois U.S. Senator Mark Kirk joined his liberal colleague Dick Durbin in support of invoking cloture on the radical anti-military, anti-family repeal of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy for our military.
The lame duck U.S. Senate voted 63 to 33 on Saturday morning to end the filibuster, which clears the way for the bill to pass with a simple majority. Every Senate Democrat voted yes, and six Republicans joined them: U.S. Senators Susan Collins (Maine), Olympia Snowe (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Scott Brown (Massachusetts), as well as retiring Senator George Voinovich (Ohio) and our own junior Senator from Illinois, Mark Kirk.

That six Republicans actually joined the ranks is an amazing thing to me.

Just perusing the ‘Illinois Family Fantasy Institution” is actually a revolting stroll down false memory lane. The ‘articles’ they post are anachronistic memes screeching as they circle down the toilet. One such ‘article’ is way over the border:

Illinois U.S. Representatives Don Manzullo and Peter Roskam and 40 of their colleagues in Congress are calling on President Barack Obama to acknowledge America's Godly heritage.
Manzullo and Roskam co-signed a letter asking President Obama to correct remarks he recently made in Indonesia where he referred to America's national motto as "E Pluribus Unum -- out of one, many." The actual national motto, adopted by Congress in 1956, is "In God We Trust."

And actually, this is correct. IGWT is indeed the national motto. Of course, if anyone moves to have it stricken, there will be quite the fuss. And screw the Founding Fathers – these folks only quote the selected highlights, and play the contextomy game.

It’s in the nature of people to resist change, the paradox being that change is a mainstay of existence. But the war of attrition is slowly eroding the barriers that separate people from one another, and some day, raging xenophobia will be a thing of the past.

Till the next post, then.