Now, in the last years earlier the mid-term election, the line has received videos from some really high-profile political figures-including the president. Last Thursday night, the White House posted a picture to Savage's site showing President Obama talking now to young, gay Americans about his own experience of exclusion, and supporting them to face ahead to a brighter day ahead: Shortly thereafter, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (a Democrat representing San Francisco) made a picture for the line as well, offering her personal and political support, and citing the recently passed hate crimes law as a mark of her loyalty to gay rights: This virtual parade of political leadership was led last Tuesday by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who, in the midst of the chaos surrounding DADT, made a picture of her own. In her message, she refers to her own witnessing of the route to women's equality: The background to all three videos, of course, is last week's drama surrounding Don't Ask, Don't Tell, which saw the ban on gays in the military overturned and then reinstated in the form of just a few days. Though DADT is back, it is so in a modified form-new rules issued by Defense Secretary Robert Gates last Thursday hold that simply the heads of the branches of the armed services (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines), working with the military's general direction and Gates' personnel chief, will be capable to fire people under DADT. Previously, anyone with a rate equivalent to one-star general could publish such a dismissal. Even so, tensions with the gay community are running high in expectation of the election, and the It Gets Better Project videos are clearly designed to polish those waters with gestures of sound faith. Many LGBT people may respond much as Savage himself did, in an audience with CNN. As Savage says, while the videos are encouraging for LGBT youth, there is often more that could be done:
No comments:
Post a Comment