The Tip of the Spear

The Honorable Barack H. Obama
President of the United States

Re: DADT - End the Wasteful Policy of Don't Ask Don't Tell

Mr. President,

With respect to this wrong-headed policy, I don't need to remind you of your previous comments both as candidate Obama and subsequently President-Elect Obama. You’ll recall very well what you said. Likewise, you should not for a moment doubt my support for you and your administration. I should note that I changed my voter registration and a life-long affiliation with the Republican Party to support enthusiastically your candidacy. The fact that I am a gay woman is also, in my view, quite beside the point.

Mr. President this IS the point - gay men and women have agreed to put on the uniform of the Armed Forces of the United States and risk losing their lives to defend everything that you and I hold dear. They serve, to the man and woman, with honor, distinction and singular bravery. They want so badly to serve this nation and we it’s people that they agree to lie about who they are at the behest of a government that gratefully accepts their service – until they can no longer be complicit in this lie. Some of them tragically will give “the last full measure of their devotion” to a nation that they so clearly love but a nation that heretofore has not allowed them to serve and be honestly who they are. They are combat pilots, mechanized infantry commanders, front line combat nurses and doctors, Arabic, Pashtu and Urdu linguists and a thousand other military specialties. They are exactly the people we need with precisely the skills and dedication to serve our nation anywhere around the world. They are the tip of the spear in the defense of this nation.

What do we, a grateful nation, owe them in return Mr. President? We owe them our steadfast support, we certainly owe them our sincere gratitude and you Mr. President, as their Commander in Chief, owe them to end this foolish and wasteful policy. You know, as I do, that you can draft an Executive Order today that will stop implementation of the policy pending a comprehensive review by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. You can direct that the Pentagon review produced establish as fact, and not merely conjecture, that openly gay service people do not undermine “good order and discipline.” Concurrently, you can encourage Congress to draft legislation to revise the Uniform Code of Military Justice and applicable law to allow gay men and woman to continue to serve this nation with distinction. Public support for the repeal of DADT is far ahead of your stated resolve to end this discriminatory policy. Spend your political capital Mr. President. Now is the time for bold leadership. Now is the time to repay fully that devotion, which our service people have so freely and consistently given us.

Respectfully,

Renée Thomas
Member of the Board of Directors - Phoenix Pride
Phoenix, Arizona

Cc:
The Honorable Senator Harry Reid
Majority Leader of the Senate

The Honorable Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi
Speaker of the House of Representatives




© 2009 Renée Thomas all rights reserved