Was the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell repeal — 17 years of tireless activism in the making, following setback after setback — the easy part?
Now that the dust has settled on the triumph of the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell repeal, the mainstream press is taking stock of what gay rights activists can do next. While no one would argue that repeal was easy, several have pointed out how much that fight had in its favor: The overwhelming support (77 percent of the American public, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll) of the American people, military leaders and the majority of the general servicemember population, the president, and the Democratic party leaders in control of both chambers. Not to mention the winning image of patriotic men and women in wartime, risking their lives to serve a country that would punish their mere existence.
One historian, George Chauncey, writes in The Times that it was in fact the military that codified gays as a class that could be discriminated against, rather than a series of individuals with “deviant” behavior. But then he tells the Washington Post that the slow pace of change against DADT despite all those promising indicators is “not a sign of gay political power but of continuing gay political weakness,” Chauncey said.