Let's keep some perspective on the DADT victory

I'm against discrimination as much as the next gay person, so of course I am pleased that DADT will soon be history. But my enthusiasm is tempered. The two most visible items on the gay rights agenda have been the military and marriage. The demand is so simple to articulate: let us in. I criticize relentlessly the problem with a "let us in" approach to marriage. I do it in my book, and in this blog, and every chance I get. Organizing legal consequences around marriage - making marriage an on/off switch that determines who is in and who is out - is bad family policy and leads to bad results for many people, including many gay men and lesbians. The demand for access to marriage too often glorifies the importance of marriage, often making less space for families and relationships that do not fit the marriage model. Marriage equality rhetoric nevers focuses on what's wrong with marriage, as though the only thing wrong with it was its exclusion of same-sex couples.

Well a "let us in" approach to the military too easily overlooks what's wrong with the military and with US military policy. The poster children for repeal have been those men and women who profess deep loyalty to the military mission, wherever it might be. Discharged servicemembers never claim they want to return to the military to change anything about it, other than its exclusion of lesbians and gay men.

As far as I can tell, the only LGBT rights group in the country to temper its delight at DADT repeal is Queers for Economic Justice, which reminds us that "it is immoral that the military is the nation’s de facto jobs program for poor and working-class people." Read its entire statement here.