Watch: Soledad O'Brien Gets into 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'
CNN's Soledad O'Brien, as part of her 'In America' series, looks at the current status of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", and interviews discharged Air Force Major Mike Almy.
Watch, AFTER THE JUMP...
We need Anderson Cooper and Suzanne Malveaux to both come out of the closet COMPLETELY..
Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 25, 2010 6:02:22 PM
the segment last night was pretty well done, though it may have raised as many questions as it answered
there's a lot of good reading on the Gay In America section of the CNN website as well
Posted by: neverstops | Jun 25, 2010 6:34:16 PM
Mike Almay is hot.
Posted by: MarkDC | Jun 25, 2010 7:21:25 PM
You take that back, Anonymous. I'd become straight for Malveaux in a heartbeat. She is smart and very good at her job, she is beautiful and sexy, and she has great character.
Posted by: Jake | Jun 25, 2010 7:28:06 PM
"She is smart and very good at her job, she is beautiful and sexy, and she has great character."
Which is incompatible with being a homosexual how...exactly...that work out....huh....douche...
Posted by: TANK | Jun 25, 2010 7:31:47 PM
Tank, I did not mean to suggest in any way that being "smart and very good at her job ... beautiful and sexy ... great character" _DOES NOT EQUAL_ being a lesbian.
I probably should have been more clear by concluding that I know she is not a lesbian. (I won't expand on that because her personal life is no one else's business, and I refuse to play a role in sharing what I know on the Internet.)
Also, there was no need to be a dick about it and call me a "douche." A simple request for clarification would have sufficed. Please, grow up. Act your age, not your show size.
Posted by: Jake | Jun 25, 2010 9:01:37 PM
Mike Almay You are on My Wall of Fame. I thank you for your service then and now. Both are equal in the Defense of Liberty and the American Dream.
I do not know if we can gain your re-instatment. Nor that of the 14,000 who share your fate. But I can pledge to you that I will do everything in my power to move our Government and our Millitary to end this unjust policy that deprives our country Men and Women of your quality. We will have an open Millitary that allows all to serve with their Integrity intact.
And I will stand beside you to see your mission completed. From the Green Heart of America my hand on it. This Discrimination will end.
Posted by: R L Pete Housman | Jun 26, 2010 12:10:18 PM
The POSSIBILITY of future "open service, is a bit of a tightrope walking act with a shark tank underneath you on one side and a safety net on the other. Which is relative to two major problems with this, yes, better than most pieces.
1. Acknowledging that there will be SOME problems for SOME people is fair. Suggesting, as this piece does, that they will be both universal and serious is incorrect in the extreme and only aids and abets the enemies of lifting the ban who use such apocalyptic predictions as an excuse to leave it in place, such as the, of course, "unnamed Pentagon source" who predicted violence breaking out in one of the many hack articles by the Associated Press.
Counting reserves, there are roughly 2.2 million people in the armed forces. There is little reason to believe that out of such a huge number there will be many instances that go beyond bitching that they [in theory] won't be able to tell fag jokes anymore. In fact, such expressions of homophobia are ALREADY techically against regulations but because the ban, by its very nature, DEFINES gays as something to dislike, even fear, the status quo is that offenders are rarely reprimanded for verbal infractions.
AND, research indicates that the majority of gays will NOT come out even if the ban is lifted. The number who do will almost entirely be in direct relation to what kind of atmosphere they have already witnessed within their units-if it seems accepting, SOME will; if it isn't, their closet doors will NOT open.
The former situation has resulted in many gays already serving openly within their units, but they remain vulnerable to transfer to less accepting units and commanders.
Which brings us, of course, to what all of those studies over half a century that Gates and Mullen like to pretend don't exist have said, including the biggest one, the 1993 RAND study. Success of open service is DIRECTLY related to proactive, assertive, uncompromising LEADERSHIP.
That is our second worry after whether or not Herr Gates actually permits open service at all even IF the statute is repealed. I simply do not believe that the Gates Reich will MAKE it successful because I simply don't believe they REALLY want "open service."
2. No respect intended to Major Almy who is simply following the Party Line, but I am sick to death of the meme that implies there WAS NO ban before DADT. 14,000 discharges? Try 150,000+ since the ban was first created. To only speak of discharges under DADT is to disrespect those tens of thousands who were discharged before, many of them also being sent to federal prison and/or military psych wards, and their families intentionally notified, too.
Further, the strategically inane emphasis of talking only in terms of "DADT" versus "the ban" for the last 17 years is exactly why millions confuse ending DADT with ending discharges which only makes Gates Grand Charade all the more successful.
Posted by: Michael @ LeonardMatlovich.com | Jun 26, 2010 3:51:21 PM
I am so tired of reading garbage from Tank. It does not matter what the article in question is about but "TANK" goes and posts some nasty remark about someone or something not related to the subject at hand. TANK, SHUT UP!
Posted by: Bear | Jun 26, 2010 5:25:33 PM
@Jake, how interesting, I know people who also know Malveaux and they know for a FACT that she IS Lesbian. You won't share because you have nothing to share. Malveaux is gay, period, you just wish she wasn't because you want her but know for a fact that you cannot have her because she is gay.
Posted by: anon | Aug 22, 2010 6:10:48 AM