A seventeen year injustice toward military personnel has finally ended today with the vote of the US Senate just completed at 330 pm this afternoon.
The adoption of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” on the subject of sexual orientation in 1993 was discriminatory from its inception, and has led to approximately 13,000 top notch, talented military personnel being dismissed.
After a long struggle initiated with the full backing of President Obama, finally the United States military meets the same standards as most European countries, Canada and Israel.
This is a major civil rights victory, and continues the difficult struggle for gay rights that has been going on for a long time.
On the vote to end the filibuster, six Republicans courageously joined 57 Democrats, so that the vote was 63-33. Those Republicans were Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Scott Brown of Massachusetts, George Voinovich of Ohio, and Mark Kirk of Illinois.
It is interesting that Voinovich, a retiring Senator, and Kirk, a newly sworn in Senator, both voted in a way not expected.
Independent Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut must be commended for leading the fight to accomplish this repeal, although he failed to budge his good friend and colleague, Senator John McCain of Arizona, who stubbornly refused to reconsider his hard line attitude on the subject, despite earlier having stated that if the military leaders and the Defense Secretary advocated lifting the ban on gays in the military, that he would go along with them. So this is not one of John McCain’s better moments in the Senate. One can compare it to his predecessor in his seat, Barry Goldwater, who stated that you don’t have to be straight to know how to shoot straight!
The final vote has just occurred and is 65-31, including some Republicans who voted “no” on ending the filibuster, but have now voted for the legislation–Richard Burr of North Carolina and John Ensign of Nevada. So this makes a total of eight Republicans who backed the final passage.
This is a pleasant surprise, and makes for eight Republicans joining all Democrats who voted “aye”.
Overall, this is a great day for the United States and its military! 🙂