Guest column: David Mixner on 'America's Day of Shame' - response to the DADT vote in the US Senate
by: Pam Spaulding
Thu Sep 23, 2010 at 09:00:00 AM EDT

http://www.pamshouseblend.com/diary/17416/guest-column-david-mixner-on-americas-day-of-shame

    America's Day of Shame

    by David Mixner, Live from Hell's Kitchen

    As we reflect on the DADT vote in the United States Senate, we must not lose sight of the one central fact of the day. That the American government, in all its glory, voted shamefully to deny their LGBT citizens full equality and freedom. We witnessed the Senate of the United States decide that the rest of Americans have to be protected from us and they must continue to keep us separated from the rest of the country. You can spin it all you want. You can blame this person or that person. You can explain away people who were missing in action, people who voted wrong and a total failure of our leadership over the last two years, it won't change a thing. They voted yet one more time to continue our oppression and status as second class citizens.

    There is no way to share with you the sickening feeling I had yesterday as I watched the debate and the vote. The open homophobia and cowardice hiding among the words of 'process and procedure' were a moment of shame for this country. While not surprised at all by the outcome, I found myself just sickened by the thought that they were voting about my friends and me. This was a direct assault on our dignity, our integrity and our freedom. To see it tossed about as a political football was almost too much to bear.