Cantwell:
Discriminatory DADT policy ‘relegated to the history
books’
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Maria
Cantwell (D-WA) hailed the end of the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy on gays in
the military. The repeal legislation that President Obama signed into law on
December 22, 2010 became effective today.
“Today, at long last, the
discriminatory ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy ends for good. I was proud to vote
to repeal this discriminatory policy, which for too long denied thousands of
U.S. service members the chance to serve their country with pride and harmed our
armed forces’ ability to recruit and maintain personnel with skills essential to
protecting national security. Beginning today, no other individual committed to
serving his or her country in the military will lose his or her job due to their
sexual orientation.
“It’s been a long road to
victory for all the brave men and women who stood up against this discriminatory
policy. I want to commend two women in particular from my home state of
Washington,
whose combined struggles to rejoin the military under this policy and serve
their country spanned nearly two decades and helped contribute to today’s
victory. Retired U.S. Army Colonel Grethe Cammermeyer of Whidbey Island and Air
Force Major Margaret Witt of Spokane both were honorably discharged under
the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy and fought drawn-out court battles to rejoin
their military units. Cammermeyer’s struggle was even the inspiration for a
television movie, Serving in Silence,
which brought this issue out of the shadows and educated millions on
the injustice of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’
“Because of brave
Americans like Grethe Cammermeyer and Margaret Witt standing up and fighting,
‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ will be relegated to the history
books.”
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