Rant on.

Last week, a federal judge declared the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy to be unconstitutional.  In her 85-page ruling* the judge said the policy had a “direct and deleterious effect” on the military.  By the gods, what took Them so long to figure this out?

Seriously, this has been one of the worst policies of the military in my opinion.  People have demonstrated over and over again that people are people, and yet over and over again other folks try to declare one group or another unfit for fair treatment.  Whether it’s gender, skin color or sexual orientation, the private sector and the military have worked hard to exclude people based on nothing more than the bigoted opinions of a few members.

The U.S. is not the first country to have this exclusion.  Several other countries have removed this ban and all the horrifying effects its removal was predicted to have, the same ones predicted for our own military, have spectacularly failed to happen.  And yet, the U.S. military continues to fight against having homosexuals in the military.

This is one of the last two big exclusions (the other being women in combat positions, a policy also slowly being removed), and it definitely has to go.  A woman recently quite West Point because she didn’t want to hide her homosexuality.  Decorated soldiers of many ranks have been forced out by the anti-gay policy.  One was forced out after some of the soldiers under his command snooped into his email and found a homosexual reference.  An easily illegal activity in the civilian world, but admissible evidence in the military.

So I give kudos to the judge declaring DADT unconstitutional.  I hope congress follows this up with an official repeal and that President Obama gives this ruling the kind of backing he promised on the campaign trail.  Let’s work towards embracing ideals of equality for a change.

Rant off.

*P.S.  An 85-page ruling?  Really?  I mean, I know it’s not good legalese to say “this policy is bullshit” but did it really require 85 pages to spell it out?  Not that this is the only lengthy legal opinion–far from it–but can we not aim towards more concise verbiage?  Geez.