Monday, December 20, 2010

Gibson still waffling on Don't Ask Don't Tell

Democrats in the current lame-duck session passed a long-overdue repeal of the military's Don't Ask Don't Tell policy, which will end the persecution of thousands of gay people who want to serve our country.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand was a leader in making DADT repeal happen, but Chris Gibson, the Army veteran who will represent Gillibrand's former Congressional district next year, doesn't like it.

Gibson still won't come out and say that he opposes DADT, though he obviously does, so he tells Susan Arbetter that there will be problems in implementing this overwhelmingly popular policy, among the general public AND among the military.

Gibson's basic problem is that officers like he was will have to spend some time learning how not to discriminate against gay service members.

He seems to think that that will take longer than a short briefing of officers and noncoms -- an hour or so, tops -- repeating the basic message, "Don't discriminate against gay people."

Gibson is playing to his right-wing base on this, and hoping that the non-right-wing majority in his district will not remember in November 2012.

But, once he's in Congress, Gibson will make plenty of far-right votes that will ensure that he will be a one-term Congressman.