From a post Dec 11, 2021:
HRC (Human Rights Campaign) has two very interesting
summaries of (1) the
repeal of 'Don't Ask Don't Tell' in 2010/2011 (under Obama) with a
discussion of Trump�s attempt to ban transgender persons from the military on
Twitter!, and (2) The
Journey to Marriage Equality in the United States.
I don't know why there is a 'Turn out in 2018' on
their home page.
HRC held a gathering for its Foundation at 4 PM Friday
December 10 in Washington.'
There is a lot of nervousness about the likely
overturning of Roe v. Wade, showing that a conservative Supreme Court may not
recognize its own precedents. That could matter to marriage equality. The military issues, however, are not based
on Supreme Court opinions but strictly based on Congress, the executive branch and the Pentagon itself.
There is also a danger in that it looks like (based on
a ruling Friday) that the Supreme Court is not willing to stop a law from being
enforced by private citizens with lawsuits in which they normally would not
have legitimate standing to sue (without a state legislature (Texas) saying
that they do). Think back to the early
1980s when the far right in Texas was speculating that HIV would mutate into
something casually contagious after being 'amplified' by gay men (that didn't
happen ) and in fact no virus has ever become an arbovirus when it hadn't been
one already) or, now, that people with HIV infection may incubate COVID21
variants (if the HIV is treated properly, it doesn't and nothing comparable
happened in the general population in the 1980s). Imagine a state passing a law giving private
citizens standing to sue over public health grounds on a theory that they
personally would be in harms way.
The detailed history
of the 'Don't Ask Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010 is important. I was
present at an outdoor gathering near the Capitol on Friday, Dec. 10, 2010. While I was there, my mother had a crisis
which would result in her going into a hospice later that afternoon when I
returned home. Her knowledge of the
repeal which I had been involved in would be almost her last memory. The repeal was gradually 'certified' in 2011
and officially celebrated by an event at SLDN (Servicemembers Legal Defense Network)
around Sept. 20, 2011.