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2. Murkowski & DADT: Turn up the heat
3. The Daily Tweets 2010-12-10: Koala cuddling

Related posts:

1. Murkowski: “I will not oppose the Defense Authorization bill if DADT repeal is part of it”
2. Murkowski & DADT: Turn up the heat
3. President Obama on DADT

A friend who has spoken with Sen. Lisa Murkowski told me that she’d directly said to him, “We’re going to fight for your issues.”

But as shown in comments broadcast last night on Anchorage’s CBS affiliate, KTVA Channel 11 ( previewed at the Think Progress’s The Wonk Room earlier in the day [Ref #1]), the closest she’s able to come in public to saying what she said privately to my friend is more along the lines of, “I’m not going to fight you on your issues.”

And clearly she sees them as “our issues” — not her own.  Equality under the law for the homosexual community (the term she uses; transfolk are not mentioned) does not seem, in her eyes, to be the same as plain and simple equality under the law for all citizens.

So I caution people not to characterize Sen. Murkowski’s comments last night to KTVA Channel 11′s Matt Felling as “support” for repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Her actual words were, “I would not oppose the Defense Authorization bill because Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, the repeal of it, is included within it.” It’s not just semantics: to not oppose is not the same as to support. A person can not oppose, for example, by abstaining.

But when it comes to votes in Congress… well, I suppose that’s better than a “no” vote.

Below is the video from KTVA Channel 11 News. Matthew Felling introduced the segment referring to the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is “thinking about bringing to a vote.” Repeal of DADT is part of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Senate authorization of NDAA was halted on September 21 by a Republican filibuster led by antigay former presidential candidate Sen. John McCain. [Ref #2] Sen. Murwkowski was not present at the vote — the only senator not present — because she was campaigning in Alaska. [Ref #3] Sen. Murkowski has previously indicated that her decision on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was partially dependent on results of the Pentagon’s comprehensive report on DADT.  The Pentagon review is due for release in early December, but portions have already been leaked to the press.

A transcript of Sen. Murkowski’s comments (corrected from the somewhat loose transcript at KTVA’s site) are below the video. [Ref #4]

Video: “Murkowski “I Would Not Oppose… DADT Repeal”

Matthew Felling:

You have been waiting to hear from them, and they have said — at least according to the polls that are out there, that have been leaked — they’re okay with it. Procedural behind the scenes things [notwithstanding]… are you more likely to vote for a bill saying “I hear them. And if they’re okay with it, I’m okay with it?”

Sen. Murkowski:

And I have said that I would work to make sure that as long as it is supported by the troops, as long as it doesn’t hurt the performance or the morale, or the recruitment — these are all things that we want to take into consideration — I think we will see that play out in this report. If in fact Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is included in the Defense Authorization and we get to the point where we can move that bill through — I would not oppose the Defense Authorization bill because Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, the repeal of it, is included within it. I have made the statement to others, that we are at a different point in time, if you will. There is, more clearly, a level of acceptance in our communities, at all levels of supporting and providing for that level of equality to the homosexual community. And I think that’s important to recognize that.

Meanwhile, Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut (an independent, formerly a Democrat) announced yesterday during a press conference flanked by 12 Democrats that he was confident there were enough votes to repeal DADT, and named Republican senators Susan Collins of Maine and Richard Lugar of Indiana as “yes” votes on NDAA and repeal of DADT. [Ref #5] The Washington Blade reported that another Republican, Sen. John Ensign of Nevada, would also vote to repeal DADT. [Ref #6] So if Sen. Murkowski is good on her word, it seems that there are at least four Republican senators willing to cross party lines to repeal DADT… if only, in Murkowski’s case, because “a level of acceptance in our communities… for that level of equality” has been reached.

Make sure to let her know that equality under the law for LGBT citizens, including LGBT servicemembers, is important to you:

Sen. Lisa Murkowski
202-224-6665 (DC)
877-829-6030 (toll free)

or write:

The Honorable Lisa Murkowski
709 Hart Senate Office Building
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510

And be sure to also call Sen. Mark Begich to thank him and encourage him in his ongoing support for equality:

Sen. Mark Begich
202-224-3004 (DC)
877-501-6275 (toll free)

One good source of recent news on repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network.

Support LGBT servicemembers.  Repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

Recent DADT posts

I have recently become an ongoing contributor to Alaska’s most important LGBT blog, Bent Alaska.  Here’s a list of recent stories on DADT both on Bent Alaska and my own blog, Henkimaa:

• 11/4/10.  “President Obama on DADT” (Henkimaa).  Crossposted on Bent Alaska.
• 11/11/10. “Honoring LGBT veterans, and a Veteran’s Day message from Alaskans Together” (Bent Alaska).
• 11/11/10. “LGBT veterans and DADT: True stories from I’m from Driftwood (Bent Alaska).
• 11/15/10. “URGENT: Call Sens. Begich and Murkowski on DADT now!” (Bent Alaska).
• 11/15/10. “Murkowski & DADT: Turn up the heat” (Henkimaa).
• 11/19/10.  “DADT: Murkowski, update from HRC, and Maddow & the Daily Show take down McCain” (Bent Alaska).

References

1. 11/18/10. “Sen. Lisa Murkowski Tells Local TV She Will Vote For Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal” by Igor Volsky (The Wonk Room, Think Progress).
2. 9/22/10. “Senate halts ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ repeal” by Ted Barrett and Dana Bash (CNN).
3. 9/21/10. “Murkowski misses vote on ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’” by Joshua Saul (Alaska Dispatch).
4. 11/18/10. “Murkowski “I Would Not Oppose… DADT Repeal” by Matt Felling (KTVA Channel 11 News).
5. 11/18/10. “Lieberman on DADT: We Have 60″ by Kerry Eleveld (The Advocate).
6. 11/18/10. “Sen. Ensign to support ‘Don’t Ask’ repeal: source” by Chris Johnson (Washington Blade).

Related posts:

1. Murkowski & DADT: Turn up the heat
2. Pentagon’s DADT report to be released today
3. President Obama on DADT

Sen. Lisa Murkowski on DADT in June this year. Click through to read the letter. h/t M.D.

Regardless of the outcome of the ballot-counting still in progress in Juneau in Alaska election for U.S. Senate, the incumbent, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, is still Sen. Lisa Murkowski today as Congress convenes for its “lame duck” session.

And it’s time to turn the heat up on her regarding Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

Here’s what she wrote to Bert Mead of the Alaska LGBT Democratic Caucus on June 12, 2010:

Thank you for contacting me about the U.S. military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. I appreciate hearing from you and having the opportunity to respond.

President Obama called for an end to this policy in his State of the Union address on January 27, 2010, but he did not provide specifics. On February 2,2010, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced that he had begun a review of the proposed change and indicated that the review would take roughly one year.

On March 25, 2010, Secretary Gates announced the Department of Defense would enact new enforcement guidelines while the review was underway. Under the new rules, only highranking officers can initiate a fact-finding inquiry or order a discharge. Additionally, the military will now restrict the kind of evidence that can be used against gay service members. Most anonymous complaints will be barred, and those who file complaints will have to give statements under oath.

I believe it is important that Secretary Gates complete a full review of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy before Congress takes action. If the Senate does consider making changes to the policy, I will keep your concerns in mind. [Ref #1]

In other words, she chose not to take any position until the Department of Defense review initiated by Secretary Gates was completed.

Now it has been, and details that have been leaked prior to its official release make it clear that DoD’s report reports little to no risking in getting rid of DADT:

More than 70 percent of respondents to a survey sent to active-duty and reserve troops over the summer said the effect of repealing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy would be positive, mixed or nonexistent, said two sources familiar with the document. The survey results led the report’s authors to conclude that objections to openly gay colleagues would drop once troops were able to live and serve alongside them. [Ref #2]

There you have your answer, Sen. Murkowski.  Little to no risk according to troops’ own evaluation.  A call from Secretary Gates himself to repeal DADT during the lame duck session (Gates says that repeal is inevitable, but that repeal by Congress will be less messy and disruptive to the military than the alternative in the courts). [Ref #3] And meantime, 70 percent of U.S. adults nationally — including 53 percent of self-described conservatives and 60 percent of Republicans — agree that gay men and lesbian soldiers and sailors should be able to serve openly in the military. [Ref #4]

No more pussyfooting around.  It’s time to turn the heat up on Lisa Murkowski. In fact, it’s time we call both our Senators — Mark Begich also needs to hear from us — to let both of them know that the National Defense Authorization Act needs to be passed intact, including repeal of the draconian “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.”

Earlier today I posted on Bent Alaska a post called “URGENT: Call Sens. Begich and Murkowski on DADT now!” which has full details on what we need to do. [Ref #5] But here’s the most pertinent part:

Call Sen. Murkowski and Sen. Begich on Monday or Tuesday THIS WEEK and deliver this message:

“Hi, my name’s [NAME] and I live in [TOWN]. I support all our servicemembers and they deserve to have the National Defense Authorization Act passed this year with funding for our troops, pay increases and the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell included. I urge Sen. Murkowski/Sen. Begich to vote for cloture and final passage of this bill.”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski
202-224-6665 (DC)
877-829-6030 (toll free)

Sen. Mark Begich
202-224-3004 (DC)
877-501-6275 (toll free)

References

1. 6/21/2010. Letter from Sen. Lisa Murkowski to Bert R. Mead re: Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.
2. 11/11/10. “Report: Little risk to lifting gay ban” by Ed O’Keefe and Greg Jaffe (Washington Post).
3. 11/10/10. “Robert Gates: ‘Don’t ask’ repeal inevitable” by Scott Wong (Politico).
4. 11/8/10. “DADT on the Chopping Block?” by Kevin Drum (Mother Jones).
5. 11/15/10. “URGENT: Call Sens. Begich and Murkowski on DADT now!” (Bent Alaska).

Related posts:

1. Murkowski: “I will not oppose the Defense Authorization bill if DADT repeal is part of it”
2. Pentagon’s DADT report to be released today
3. President Obama on DADT

Transcript courtesy Queerty (I’ve filled in some of the gaps that they missed):

I’ve been a strong believer in the notion that if somebody is willing to serve in our military, in uniform, putting their lives on the line for our security, that they should not be prevented from doing so because of their sexual orientation. And since there’s been a lot of discussion of polls over the past 48 hours, I think it’s worth noting that the overwhelming majority of Americans feel the same way. It’s the right thing to do.

Now, as commander-in-chief, I’ve said that making this change needs to be done in an orderly fashion, and I’ve worked with the Pentagon, worked with Secretary Gates, worked with Admiral Mullen, to make sure that we are looking at this in a systematic way that maintains good order and discipline, but that we need to change this policy. There’s going to be a review that comes out at the beginning of the month that will have surveyed attitudes and opinions within the armed forces. I will expect that Secretary of Defense Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mullen will have something to say about that review. I will look at it very carefully, but that will give us time to act, potentially during the lame duck session to change this policy.

Keep in mind, we’ve got a bunch of court cases that are out there as well, and something that would be very disruptive to good order and discipline and unit cohesion is if we’ve got this issue bouncing around in the courts as it already has over the last several weeks, where the Pentagon and the chain of command doesn’t know at any given time what rules they’re working under. We need to provide certainty. And it’s time for us to move this policy forward. This should not be a partisan issue. This is an issue as I’ve said where you’ve got a sizable portion of the American people squarely behind the notion that folks who are willing to serve on our behalf should be treated fairly and equally.

Update

Steve Benet of the Washington Monthly writes,

Given the make-up of the next Congress, policymakers will have just one more chance to clear the way for repealing the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy — and it will come during the lame-duck Senate session that begins in two weeks. If the effort fails, it will be at least two years, and probably more, before anyone can even try again.

DADT’s fate in December will depend largely upon whether at least two Republicans will be willing to vote for its repeal. Writes Benet,

In about a month’s time, a majority of the troops, a majority of American civilians, a majority of the House, a majority of the Senate, the Commander in Chief, the Secretary of Defense, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and two of his recent predecessors will all be saying the exact same thing: it’s time to end “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

And in all likelihood, it’ll be up to Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine to decide whether the repeal effort lives or dies.

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1. Murkowski & DADT: Turn up the heat
2. The Daily Tweets 2010-12-30: DADT report
3. Murkowski: “I will not oppose the Defense Authorization bill if DADT repeal is part of it”

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They Want Us Exterminated: Murder, Torture, Sexual Orientation and Gender in Iraq. Click through to read Human Rights Watch's 2009 report on antigay pogroms in Iraq.

Earlier today I heard a discussion on NPR’s Talk of the Nation about how gay men are systematically being hunted down and killed in Iraq [Ref #1] and the efforts of some New Yorkers — members of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights Division at Human Rights Watch [Ref #2] — to help them. The show’s guest was Matt McAllester, whose story about the antigay pogroms “The Hunted” was published yesterday in New York Magazine. [Ref #3]

It’s pretty harrowing:

As virulent as the violence against gay people (men mostly) was, it operated at a kind of low hum for many years, overshadowed by the country’s myriad other problems. But in February of this year, something changed. There was no announcement, no fatwa, no openly declared policy by a cleric or militia leader or politician, but a wave of anti-gay hysteria hit the country. An Iraqi TV station, with disapproving commentary, showed a video of a group of perhaps two dozen young men at a private dance party, wiggling their hips like female belly dancers. Terms like the third sex and puppies, a newly coined slur, began to appear in hostile news reports. Shia and Sunni clerics started to preach in their Friday sermons about the evils of homosexuality and “the people of Lot.” Police officers stepped up their harassment of openly gay men. Families and tribes cast out their gay relatives. The bodies of gay men like Mazen and Namir, often mutilated, began turning up on the street. There is no way to verify the number of tortured or harassed, but the best available estimates place that figure in the thousands. Hundreds of men are believed to have been killed. [Ref #3]

(Don’t those sermons sound an awfully similar to what gets preached from the pulpit of a certain Anchorage church?  There but for the grace of some other God than theirs go we.)

Scott Long, one of people at HRW’s LGBT Rights Program who’ve been trying to bring gay Iraqis to safety, posted a comment on the New York Magazine story as follows:

My name’s Scott Long, from the LGBT Rights Division at Human Rights Watch. It’s good to know people care about this. I’m happy to discuss with anybody what can be done. There are many things –

• Raising awareness of the issue in the US and Europe, pushing for human rights to be part of the Iraqi security equation;
• Pressuring governments, including the US , to do their duty and accept as refugees Iraqi LGBTs who have fled;
  
• Providing support to groups that are assisting the refugees now.

Feel free to e-mail me at longs@hrw.org. [Ref #3, reader comments]

See also Scott Longs August 19, 2009 story on the Human Rights Watch website, “Anti-Gay Gangs Terrorize Iraq”:

The militias mask themselves in moral purpose, but politics underlies the violence. The US “surge”, which supposedly cemented Iraq’s democracy by ensuring security, succeeded mainly because the Mahdi army chose a strategic retreat. In the process, though, it lost considerable credibility on the street. Now, many believe, it is trying to recoup its reputation by recasting itself, through these murders, as a defender of Iraqi manhood and morality. [Ref #4]

One challenge for the men who’ve so far been saved by the “underground railroad” set up by Scott Long & his colleagues is in finding a safe country where they will have some sort of social support system:

All were hoping for countries like Australia, Canada, Sweden, or the United States to accept them as permanent refugees. But they worried about how they—gay Iraqi men who don’t, for the most part, speak English and are separated from nearly everyone they love and all they grew up with—would make it in Sydney, Toronto, Stockholm, or New York. Unlike most refugees, the gay Iraqis could not rely on being welcomed by their former countrymen on arrival in their host country. Even in a country where being gay is accepted, they believed, non-gay Iraqis would still be hostile to them. [Ref #3]

I found myself thinking of the Arabic interpreters kicked out of the U.S. Army under Don’t Ask Don’t Tell because they were gay. [Ref #5] Stupid policy then, stupid policy now.  Here are people that, were they in a position to do so, would’ve been ideally suited to provide at least some help and welcome to Iraqi gays.  But as much as our country’s leadership is dragging its feet in ending the injustice of DADT — & yes,  I’m talking about you, President Obama — it doesn’t seem they’re ready to offer asylum or any other kind of assistance to gay Iraqis who are living their lives under threat of imminent death.

It’s up to us.

What about Iraqi lesbians? — from what was said on Talk of the Nation, women in Iraq don’t have acess to the outside world through the Internet or by other means to the same extent men do.  So while certainly there are Iraqi lesbians, it’s unknown if they are being targeted by religious death squads & family members eager to “restore honor [!!!!] to their families” through torture and murder, to the same extent as gay men.

References

1. 10/5/09. “Group Rescues Gay Men Targeted In Iraq” (Talk of the Nation, National Public Radio). Audio of program (17 mins. 13 sec.) with Matt McAllester.
2. LGBT Rights Division at Human Rights Watch.
3. 8/19/09. “Anti-Gay Gangs Terrorize Iraq” by Scott Long (LGBT Rights Division, Human Rights Watch).
4. 10/4/09.  “The Hunted” by Matt McAllester (New York Magazine).
5. 11/15/02. “US army sacks gay Arabic experts” (BBC News).

Additional information

Related posts:

1. Murkowski: “I will not oppose the Defense Authorization bill if DADT repeal is part of it”
2. Channel 11 interview, part 2 (the full story)
3. What's on the table: Anchorage equal rights ordinance