It's not polite to say "I told you so," I guess, but we did tell them so, and told them, and told them...
After years of listening to right-wing know-it-alls like John McCain predicting dire consequences if gay soldiers and Marines were allowed to serve openly in the military, those of us who said all along that repealing DADT wouldn't harm unit cohesion have once again been proven right.
Military leaders and gay and lesbian service members say the year that has passed since the repeal took effect has been remarkable for what hasn’t happened. Recruitment and retention have not fallen off as some opponents of the repeal predicted they would. Harassment of homosexual troops has not significantly increased. Unit cohesion has not suffered.
In fact, some veterans who left the military under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” have rejoined. And some active-duty soldiers say cohesion has improved in their units, because people no longer have to completely guard their personal lives.
So, just as we all predicted, the military has not only survived the lifting of the ban, but it continues to thrive without it.
“Basically, there’s been no change in the way we do business,” says Troy Rolan, an Army spokesman at the Pentagon. “All our soldiers, they’re soldiers – regardless of who or what they are. They’re professionals. They do what they need to do to make sure everybody’s taken care of.”
Sgt. Maj. Carlos Gomez, a 25-year Army veteran and command sergeant major for the 1st Theater Sustainment Command at Fort Bragg, was with his troops in Iraq when the ban was lifted.
“No problems at all,” Gomez says. “It just seemed like there was not even a bump in the road.”
Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/...
Of course, there are still Chicken Littles aplenty who believe the dire consequences are still just over the horizon.
Elaine Donnelly, president of the Michigan-based Center for Military Readiness, which opposes allowing gays to serve in the military, insists the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” has caused problems. A same-sex commitment ceremony this summer at a chapel on Fort Polk, La., was “extremely divisive in that community,” she said.
The effect of the repeal on recruitment and retention has been masked by the down economy, Donnelly said, as people choose to stay in the military because they can’t easily find other jobs. The real effects, she said, “may not be visible for several years.”
Yea, you just keep telling yourself that, Elaine.
My question is when are all these doomsayers like McCain going to finally apologize or at least acknowledge the wrongness of their position? I guess the answer to that is when the sky itself actually does fall.
Here's McCain being an asshat on the issue.