Just today, I kid you not, I realized the purpose of the duct tape in all those NOH8 Campaign photos. It should be intuitively obvious, I suppose: we can be full members of society if we keep our mouths shut and pretend we’re something we’re not. But for some reason–perhaps it’s because straight people pose for those ads, too–I never made the connection till today.
(Sssshhh! Don’t tell anyone, but apparently I’m a little slow on the uptake.)
Earlier this week, I was chatting with some people, and the topic of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell came up. I’ve been fortunate to find a great group of progressive-minded people here in this corner of the Bible Belt, so it was no surprise that the tone of the conversation was one of humor and bemusement. Now that even the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has said that DADT is just plain wrong, it’s fairly safe to treat the topic as a big, puzzling joke.
But then someone new joined us. With a troubled expression, he explained that he didn’t understand what all the fuss was about. If a gay person wants to serve in the military, this fellow said, that’s fine, right? As long as he keeps his mouth shut?
A bunch of us tried to explain how that’s right but also so very wrong. But I don’t think we really succeeded: his final pronouncement on the matter was that he didn’t know if repealing DADT was such a good idea.
(Sssshhhh! Don’t tell, but I was really pissed.)
