RIP DADT: Another one bites the dust
by David Atkins (“thereisnospoon”)
The moral arc of the universe is long, but it does bend toward justice:
President Obama has certified the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” clearing the way for gays to serve openly in military…
“As of Sept. 20, servicemembers will no longer be forced to hide who they are in order to serve our country,” Obama said in a statement.
He was joined by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen.
Good riddance, DADT. As bad as things get on other fronts, it is good to know that in some ways, things do get better, and there are advantages to having allies in the Oval Office.
In a broader sense, it’s a reminder that on most fronts not involving abortion rights (more on that in a later post), the Left broadly speaking is winning the culture wars, which is why the Dominionists are so obsessed with them. The promotion of a raving lunatic like Michele Bachmann isn’t so much an act of strength by the culture warriors on the right, as a sign of desperation. They’re getting beaten on nearly every front as society becomes increasingly egalitarian, as LGBT people become more and more accepted in the social mainstream, as gender roles become increasingly equitable, as sexuality increasingly becomes something to be honored rather than feared, as racism is forced to become increasingly coded, as more ecumenical spirituality, agnosticism and atheism begin to slowly overtake more dogmatic doctrines, as the values of John Wayne movies give way to the values of films like Avatar, etc.
It’s on the core economic front that Democrats have fallen down, and the left generally is being savagely beaten. Foreign policy hasn’t been going especially great either, but it bears reminding that throughout the history of this nation, the part of the two-party system that passes for the left in America has traditionally been at least as bellicose if not more so than the rightist faction, ever since the days of Andrew Jackson. Barack Obama has often been negatively compared to FDR on the economy and rightly so, but let us not forget the horrors of Korematsu and internment camps, the loud voices on the right calling for isolationism during WWII, and FDR’s failure to act on dealing with Jim Crow, lynchings and civil rights abuses in the South.
We can and should be deeply concerned about the economic and foreign policy conversation in this country. But for the sake of sanity if nothing else, we mustn’t neglect to celebrate what we have achieved in the fight for equal rights for all our nation’s brothers and sisters.