'via Blog this'
I watched this youtube clip before I found out about the recent, saddening suicide of a sweet boy from upstate NY , and was filled with a great deal of hope about who DADT was repealed for and frankly, its nice to see such a human (and let's be honest, adorable) face to such an institutional and cultural impediment to equality. One imagines many people who have on the whole been forced to live a sequestered life, a social life of omission, that forces one to keep friends and family at arms length might be emboldened by no longer having to. Its a process of liberation, this step of being candid, honest with the people who ought to know you best. Suffice it to say our patriot in question may have gone about it in the most ... instantaneous way, as the story has in as many days garnered a shit ton of views and a fair amount of mainstream press.
All with good reason. We're watching people who've been forced to live with a gag order looming over their ability to casually mention their personal lives in any meaningful way lest it destroy their professional one. It was a particularly inelegant band-aid to have been applied to prevent a "worse outcome". It remains to be seen if the number of wrongful discharges were in fact worse outcomes to the persons who've been ceremoniously fired for aspects of their lives that occur off duty. It was an interesting bit of institutional discrimination that was meant to be less of a discriminatory measure than it happened to be. Good intentions don't neatly absolve one of robbing otherwise good soldiers of their ability to serve their country, mind, but those of us interested in genuine equality ought to celebrate the demise this bizarre period of policy history and call it a day.(Big kudos to Senator Gilibrand among many others for making this come to fruition)
Some uplifting from the pretty keen British Sea Power- Waving Flags
"We're only here for a while, and its all joke." (but don't be scared)
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