Equality

In Missouri, you can lose your job because you're gay and your employer finds that just a little too icky.  Or you can be evicted from your apartment because you're gay.

Crazy, right?

Fortunately, Rep. Stephen Webber (D-Columbia) and Sen. Jolie Justus (D-Kansas City) are once again trying to right this wrong in Missouri law.  Their bills (HB477 and SB239, respectively) would prohibit discrimination based upon a person's sexual orientation.    

This isn't the first time they've tried to set things right, leaving one to wonder why conservative leaders in both chambers are so intent on protecting Missourians' right to discriminate against people because of who they are or who they love.    The good news is that last year's bill went farther than previous efforts, and HB477 is co-sponsored by 48 fellow Representatives.

A statement from Webber released last week about his bill is pasted below the jump. 

PROMO, Missouri's leading LGBT equality advocacy organization, is currently working to raise money for their work in an online fundraising contest called Pepsi Refresh Everything.   Participating organizations have already won $1M so far, and the PROMO Fund is joining the effort.   To participate and vote for PROMO, supporters can click here.   Supporters who would like daily reminders for voting can sign up with The Progressive Slate here.    

Here's the message from PROMO to supporters:

We're asking that you sign-up to be a daily voter http://www.theprogressiveslate.com/january/signup.php?name=promofund for the PROMO Fund in January.

As a daily voter, you'll receive a short email each morning in the month of January with a link where you can go and cast 10 votes each day for all the organizations on the Progressive Slate (that's what we're calling all of our groups working together).

The contest runs through January and we'll know by the end of the month whether we won or not.

Crazy Ed Martin emailed supporters this morning to complain about a number of federal issues, including this weekend's bipartisan Senate vote to end the discriminatory "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy.  Martin, as you might have guessed, opposes the move. What you may not have known is that Martin has his pulse on the LGBT community.  Here is his brilliant defense of continued discrimination:

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was a reasonable compromise policy in which the military has been directed to not “hunt” homosexuals and those who were gay have been asked to keep their private lives private. I believe the overwhelming majority of servicemen and women who are gay accept that the mission is more important than their personal life and are satisfied by the bargain. Over 80% of honorable discharges under DADT have been initiated by a service member breaking their part of the agreement by making their sexual orientation a matter of unit discipline.

Senator McCaskill and Congressman Carnahan may have secured for themselves the accolades of the left by ignoring the concerns of our combat troops but they have introduced a potentially disruptive variable into the volatile mix of a military in a protracted war.  I hope my grave concerns are never realized, but I fear the self-righteous indulgence of these thoughtelss [sic] leftists will have awful consequences.

Yowsa.

Tweeted this morning by Congresswoman-elect Vicky Hartzler:

Never mind that 77% of Americans think members of the military should be able to serve open and honestly, that more than 70% of respondents in the Pentagon's study on DADT said that repealing the discriminatory policy would have "positive, mixed or nonexistent" effects, or that the Pentagon says that ending the policy will "not harm long-term military effectiveness."

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Also check out St. Louis Activist Hub's coverage of Ed Martin's spasm of homophobia this weekend. 

Yesterday, 65 senators -- including 8 Republicans -- cast a huge vote to end the nation's discriminatory "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. Sen. Claire McCaskill voted for equality, and Sen Kit Bond voted against.  President Obama is expected to sign the legislation next week, and then:

the Pentagon, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Obama must work out an implementation plan and officially certify that the military is ready to allow its gay and lesbian servicemembers to come out of the closet. Sixty days after that, DADT is "officially" repealed. Such is the language of the bill the Senate passed today and the House passed earlier in the week.

But repeal could effectively be in place far earlier than that. Following the cloture vote today, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called on the Pentagon to suspend all DADT discharges and investigationsimmediately, something gay rights advocates say Defense Secretary Robert Gates can order whenever he wants.

The U.S. House of Representatives voted 270-175 this afternoon to repeal the federal "don't ask, don't tell" policy barring openly gay and lesbian soldiers from the military.  Representatives Russ Carnahan, Lacy Clay and Emanuel Cleaver all voted for repeal.  Representatives Todd Akin, Roy Blunt, Jo Ann Emerson, Sam Graves, Blaine Luetkemeyer, and Ike Skelton voted against repeal.  The full roll call vote is here.

Nearly 80% of Americans support repeal. It's time. 

Tomorrow, the Pentagon is expected to release the results of its service member survey regarding the repeal of the federal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy.  Early reports from sources familiar with the findings say that "more than 70 percent of respondents" said that repealing DADT would have "positive, mixed or nonexistent" effects.  

And today, a Pew survey finds that 58% of Americans want gays to be able to serve openly in the armed forces, while only 27% oppose. 

In anticipation of tomorrow's report, here's a great cartoon from Nick Anderson via the Center for American Progress.

This ad from the Palm Center calling for the repeal of the federal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy is apparently too much for Fox News' delicate audience to handle. 

What if the commercial just read from a new CNN poll showing that 72% of Americans think people should be able to serve openly?  Would that also get turned down by the freedom lovers at Fox? 

Politico: "Senate Democrats fail[ed] to break a Republican filibuster of a defense authorization bill that also would have allowed the repeal of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which prohibits openly gay men and women from serving in the armed forces. The bill was defeated on a largely party-line vote, 56-43, as Democrats failed to find a single GOP senator to agree to open debate on the bill. The filibuster ends what gay rights advocates had believed was their best hope of nixing the 17-year-old policy. "

Sen. Kit Bond voted to sustain the filibuster.  Sen. Claire McCaskill voted to end the filibuster and move the bill forward.

Via the Pitch, here's some quality video of McCaskill questioning Admiral Mike Mullen about the current policy.

Lt. Governor Peter Kinder and Speaker Ron Richard are accusing Gov. Jay Nixon of violating the law (or constitution) with an executive order signed this summer saying the State of Missouri should not discriminate against employees based on their sexual orientation. You can read Executive Order 10-24 here.

In a new article published yesterday on the Missouri Baptist Convention Pathway website, Kinder's spokesman says the executive order is "nothing more than a political statement" (pause for a moment to enjoy the irony of this criticism), but one Kinder believes "goes beyond the extent of the law."  Richard, also a esteemed legal scholar, says Nixon has "clearly overstepped his authority again."   Yet as Missouri Lawyers Media reported in July, "other governors - including Republican Govs. John Ashcroft and Matt Blunt - used executive orders to craft discrimination policies for the executive branch."

Curiously, Kinder appears to have only mustered the courage to express his outrage to the conservative MBC Pathway, but had no comment for the Associated Press, Post-Dispatch, Beacon or Star when they reported on the order in July.  Since that time, of course, he has tweeted about numerous other manufactured (and almost entirely federal) controversies.  But why is he not tweeting up a storm demanding that Nixon allow the state to discriminate against employees because of who they are?  

Politico's Ben Smith:

A Federal Judge in California has ruled that the ban on gays in the military violates the Constitutional rights of gay and lesbian soldiers to due process and to freedom of expression.

District Court Judge Virginia Phillips -- a Clinton appointee -- also wrote that the policy has had a "deleterious effect" on the military and issued an injunction restraining the military from enforcing the policy, though the government may appeal.

The Log Cabin Republicans filed the lawsuit against Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and Phillips cited in her ruling the Obama administration's desultory defense.

"[D]efendants called no witnesses, put on no affirmative case, and only entered into evidence the legislative history of the act," she wrote.

The full decision is here.

Never ones to let a public policy debate in another state go to waste, former State Senator John Loudon and corporate tea party personality Gina Loudon are hoppin' mad about yesterday's court ruling about California's Prop 8.  Gina is promoting a National Organization for Marriage rally in Clayton tomorrow, and says the Prop 8 ruling is one "big gay mistake" perpetrated by "the militant left." Silly you for thinking those socialist hordes were a bunch of peace-loving hippies.  She's also convinced that the 'rumors' regarding the judge's sexuality undermine his ability to think clearly about the law (court decisions about marriage are generally left to eunuchs, I'm told).

Not be outdone, John says if you want people to be treated equally under the law you should just move to someplace gay like Iowa:

If you want gay marriage, keep the federal government out of it. Move to a State of your choosing, and live happily gayly married ever after. This crap of you leftists getting one judge to make laws really irritates the heck out of people who believe in the rule of law. It is disgusting that you people cannot learn from the past. Live by the sword, die by the sword. You leave no choice but a US Constitutional Amendment.

As you may know, the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) launched a new “Stories from the Frontlines" project last week to pressure the White House and Congress to end the federal 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' (DADT) policy.  The campaign is intended to ramp up pressure before President Obama issues his defense budget recommendations this year, and before the Defense Authorization bill is debated in Congress. 

The organization is releasing a personal letter every day challenging the current policy.  Today's story comes from Clifton Truman Daniel, grandson of President Harry Truman. 

Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) launched a new “Stories from the Frontlines" project yesterday as part of their larger effort to pressure the White House and Congress to end the federal 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' (DADT) policy.  The campaign is intended to ramp up pressure before President Obama issues his defense budget recommendations this year, and before the Defense Authorization bill is debated in Congress. 

Every day this week, the organization will release an open letter at www.sldn.org/letters from a person impacted by the existing discriminatory policy. 

Today's letter is from Captain Joan Darrah, USN (Ret.), yesterday's was from Former Air Force Major Mike Almy.  Darrah writes:

Dear Mr. President,

My name is Joan Darrah and I served in silence under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) for almost two decades.  I share my personal story with you as we’re at a critical point in the fight to repeal this discriminatory law.

New data out today: 

A solid majority of Americans say gays should be allowed to openly serve in the military, and an even higher percentage believe that the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy in effect since 1993 amounts to discrimination, according to a Quinnipiac University poll conducted Feb. 2-8.

We may die in a terrorist attack if Congress repeals "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

From Wednesday's Daily Show:

Sen. Bill Stouffer will be opining on the "Missouri response" to potential changes in the federal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy this morning, as you may know by now. 

Stouffer will no doubt spend some time trying to explain how his anti-gay posturing with state time and resources is not related to his campaign for Congress, and he should. 

But as Chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee, Stouffer may also have some insight into how and why Cpl. Dennis Engelhard, recently killed in a Christmas Day traffic accident, was able to serve openly in the Missouri State Highway Patrol. 

As far as I know, there have been no questions about Engelhard's ability to perform his duties at the highest level, though his death does raise serious questions about state policy regarding domestic partner benefits. 

UPDATE: Jason Noble has a brutal blog post over at the Prime Buzz about Stouffer's campaign official press conference.  In response, Stouffer's campaign has explained that the Senator will be sponsoring legislation somehow related to federal policy. 

Tell us again why Stouffer's Congressional campaign is making the announcements about what his official office is doing? 

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State Sen. Bill Stouffer is conducting an "informal press conference" tomorrow morning alongside state senate candidate Jack Jackson to talk about how terrible it would be if the discriminatory and counterproductive "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" policy -- a federal policy -- is repealed. 

In Stouffer's media advisory, distributed at taxpayer expense, the Senator promises to offer a "Missouri response" to President Obama's stated intention to end DADT. 

Of course, there aren't any "Missouri responses" to a prospective change in federal DADT policy, but Stouffer wants to get his name in the paper to prove he's as disgusted by gays in the military as primary opponent Vicky Hartlzer.

I'm sure Stouffer doesn't mind any criticism from the left for his demagoguery against the LGBT community. But conservatives and progressives alike should be able to agree that it makes no sense for taxpayers to be paying for this garbage.

Todd Akin has signed on to an amicus brief in D.C. Superior Court calling for a voter referendum on whether to legalize same-sex marriage in the District of Columbia. Akin and 38 other Republican members of Congress have signed on to the brief filed by the American Center for Law and Justice, an organization founded by televangelist Pat Robertson. The Washington Post:

In the filing, U.S. senators James Inhofe (Okla.) and Roger Wicker (Miss.) and 37 House Republicans align with Bishop Harry Jackson, pastor of Hope Christian Church, in asking the court to reverse a D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics decision prohibiting the same-sex marriage question to be put before voters...