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11/10/2011
Think with Bink: Why equality isn't a drop in, drop out kind of thing
The Courage Campaign's Adam Bink reminds us why today's Senate Judiciary Committee vote on the Respect for Marriage Act (repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act) matters more than its chances of passage might indicate:
SNIP: If you live inside the Beltway, you probably hear (or are thinking) what we've heard since Election Day 2010: "So what? [DOMA repeal will] never get through the Republican-controlled House, so why bother?" It's a classic cynical response to organizing, one that overvalues the short-term and shortchanges the long-term.
Movements don't start and stop every two years. It wasn’t like we all woke up the day after Election Day 2008 and said to ourselves, “We may have a pro-repeal House, Senate and president coming in January. I guess we can go start repealing 'don’t ask, don’t tell'!" If we did that, then we would have wasted more than a decade. What if we had all said, “Why bother spending our time trying to get rid of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell?’” every single year from 1995 to 2001, when anti-repeal Republicans controlled the House and Senate? What if we continued saying it from 2001 to 2009, when President George W.Bush and a majority of Congress opposed repeal, and we all sat on our hands for 17 years in total? Then when we finally reached the tipping point last year, public opinion would not have climbed to an astounding 77% nationwide in support of DADT repeal. Stories like those of Lt.Dan Choi would not have changed hearts and minds across America. We would not have had the critically important Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullenon board, nor hundreds of members of Congress, nor editorials in newspapers across America in support of repeal. All of that took work, and if we had waited 17 years to even start it, we would not have been in a position to deliver the final blow that we did in December 2010.
FULL: Op-ed: Movements Don't Stop and Start Every Two Years [Advocate]
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