Defending the Long Gay Line
By MAUREEN DOWD
NYT
I’ve had high hopes for Adm. Mike Mullen ever since I learned that his mom was an assistant to Jimmy Durante and his dad was a Hollywood press agent whose clients included Bob Hope, Ann-Margret, Phyllis Diller, Jimmy Stewart, Carol Burnett and Dyan Cannon.
That’s the dream U.S.O. tour.
On Tuesday, the craggy chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff showed that a lifetime in the military has not knocked all the showbiz pizazz out of him.
“I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens,” Mullen said during the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on dropping the archaic “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. “For me personally, it comes down to integrity — theirs as individuals and ours as an institution.”
In heartfelt testimony to the senators, Mullen said: “I have served with homosexuals since 1968.” Acknowledging that they face death daily, he said that “putting individuals in a position that every single day they wonder whether today’s going to be the day, and devaluing them in that regard, just is inconsistent with us as an institution.”
(More here.)
NYT
I’ve had high hopes for Adm. Mike Mullen ever since I learned that his mom was an assistant to Jimmy Durante and his dad was a Hollywood press agent whose clients included Bob Hope, Ann-Margret, Phyllis Diller, Jimmy Stewart, Carol Burnett and Dyan Cannon.
That’s the dream U.S.O. tour.
On Tuesday, the craggy chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff showed that a lifetime in the military has not knocked all the showbiz pizazz out of him.
“I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens,” Mullen said during the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on dropping the archaic “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. “For me personally, it comes down to integrity — theirs as individuals and ours as an institution.”
In heartfelt testimony to the senators, Mullen said: “I have served with homosexuals since 1968.” Acknowledging that they face death daily, he said that “putting individuals in a position that every single day they wonder whether today’s going to be the day, and devaluing them in that regard, just is inconsistent with us as an institution.”
(More here.)
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