Don't Ask. Go to hell.

Whatever ails the world, from terrorists to North Koreans, drone bombs to the CIA, it's more than mildly comforting to know that at long last the war on cock suckers is over. I'm not bullshitting here; the repeal this evening of DADT is a major moment. This will be seen, historically, as more important than the end of Segregation in the South. I know how adsurd that sounds, but I believe it.

At the end of the day, more people are homophobic than racist. Nobody with half a brain (the amount alloted the average American) could ultimately, in the face of all the evidence, see a black human as anything but equal, but gay men or lesbian women are still incomprehensible and loathsome to the cousin-humping fucks who can fill their one operable care with more people than teeth, drive to the polls in Melba, KS and vote for Jesus. This repeal is not a small victory. It suggests, for the first time in a long time, that there are more of us than there are of them, more people who could care less what their neighbors do with their junk, more people who have a shred of sympathy, decency, understanding. Tennessee Williams wrote that he could accept anything human, any behaviour, any activity, so long as it wasn't cruel. He should know about cruelty having endured it throughout his "don't ask, don't tell" life. Hating gay and lesbian Americans, denying them their constitutional rights, including the right to die for their countrymen, was cruel.

The truth is, the is nothing less than a sea-change, a reminder that we are not done, that there are fights left to fight and people willing to fight them. Who knows what happens next. I doubt that the gay rights floodgates will finally open wide. It may be years before your gay neighbor can marry the man he loves, your lesbian aunt can acknowlege her love for a woman, but goddamit this is big and it's a start.

I feel light today. We may all still die from global warming, war, suicide, but the fucking aliens who find our ruins one day will have to acknowledge that we were moving to the light when the shit hit the fan. Thank god we live in a country where this change can happen. Forget that it took too long. Remember the countless gay men and lesbian women who sacrificed career and love of country because they dared to speak the love that dare not speak its name. This wasn't a Glee episode. It was the Joint Chiefs of Staff admitting the dick sucking isn't a crime and doesn't lead to cowardice.

My nephew is in his second year at Annapolis. He sent me a copy of an essay he just wrote for a class he's taking. His writting is brilliant and he earned the top score in his class and dinner with the Admiral for his efforts. The topic was vague: "Should any Americans be prevented from serving in the U.S. Military?" It's clear that the Academy is more than a little aware that it serves some gay students and that gay men and women are in the Navy. My nephew's essay argued eloquently, using Kant, etc. as evidence, for the immediate repeal of DADT on the grounds that it is unconstituional, unwise and unamerican. I'm as proud of this esssay, and of my nephew as I ever have been. His generation is better than mine and I ought to know. They are smarter, kinder and will leave the world a better place than they found it. In the words of the poet, "get out of the way if you can't lend your hand; for the times they are a changin'."