Originally published at: Honorable discharges given to soldiers kicked out in Don't Ask Don't Tell era - Boing Boing
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I’d add this entry as well, the policy having been implemented under Clinton.
I do think the Dems are finally starting to get past the notion that they have to appease conservative fantasists to win.
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That’s the one. I was blanking on it. My brain would approach the concept and I would just see Tony Blair’s teeth and then wake up an hour later in the bathtub.
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DADT was very bad, but not quite as bad as the policy of outright criminalization of homosexuality that preceded it. I’m glad to see that the article mentioned a separate effort to pardon soldiers that were convicted under those laws but I didn’t see anything about potentially giving any of them honorable discharge status too:
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Especially since it didn’t work anyway; the Republicans roundly denounced DADT as proof that the Democrats were pandering to those evil evil gays instead of throwing anyone suspected of “sodomy” into the nearest brig to await military trial.
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How the hell did it take this long to do this? At this point, I imagine enough time has gone by that the window has passed wherein those affected could have best made use of the benefits that are now restored to them, but hopefully someone still can.
I think it’s taken the current situation, where it really doesn’t work, for them to realize how futile it is. We’re now at the point where Republicans are more and more consistently denying fundamental reality - what Democrats actually do increasingly doesn’t matter. Trying to deliberately appeal to fantasists is impossible, when they’ll deny what you did ever happened (and/or claim they did it). I hope Democrats find this freeing…
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I hope Biden has a whole slew of things coming during his post-election lame duck period, most of which I hope piss off the GOP.
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I think you meant to say making sure it “doesn’t not matter”…
Have you checked that you still have both your kidneys?
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I was kicked out before the DADT era, so it’s a bit amazing that I managed to get an honorable discharge. I still did not go near any of my veteran benefits for many years afterwards simply because of the bad taste left in my mouth by the experience.
Even if I was only just now starting to receive my benefits, it would still be useful to me, but I can also understand it might take many more years before someone in that situation would feel comfortable dealing with the paperwork to receive them. There’s still a bureaucracy to face beyond just getting an updated DD 214.
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The cynic in me wonders why this happened so late in Biden’s term.
You mean After he decided not to run again himself? 
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Mostly because they’ve moved far enough right to occupy the same space Republicans occupied in the 80s.
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There were a couple people stationed in my town (big Navy and AF bases there at the time) who immediately after DADT passed, went to their COs and said “I’m gay, what are you going to do about it?”
Turns out it was to discharge them for “failure to adapt”.
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What parts of Biden’s agenda would Reagan or Trump have voted for? Against?
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Where is my fingers crossed emoji?!?
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I think Reagan would have been thrilled with Biden’s tax policy. I mean, he fought to lower the marginal tax rate from 70% to 50% and then to 38.5%, which was practically the crowning achievement of his administration. Biden’s proposed 2025 budget raises it to… 39.6%. 1.1% over Reagan’s own personal best. Yeah, I’m quite certain the Gipper would have been proud of that number.
Or we could compare Reagan’s war on drugs and tough on crime stance to Kamala Harris’ record as a prosecutor, or modern Democratic gun control proposals to Reagan’s assault weapons ban. There’s a few pretty cozy data points between them.
And obviously there’s Obama’s promises of healthcare reform manifesting as a consumer protection bill stapled to Newt Gingrich’s plan from 1996 (after Romney tested it out for us).
Reagan was the turning point for the grand fucking of America, but the Clinton administration was the one that gave the Democrats’ official stamp of approval to our disastrous neoliberal policy and Republican appeasement with welfare reform, NAFTA, and the 1994 crime bill. They’ve been moving those goalposts firmly starboard ever since.
Republicans supported gay rights, abortion rights, women’s rights, trans rights, environmental sanity in the '80s? Man, i lived through that. We do not remember it the same at all. James Watt as Sec of Interior ring any bells? Compare him to Deb Haaland. Not equivalent. No, Biden has (shocking to me) moved the party far left of Clinton and Obama. Not perfect, but same as Reagan? Nope, not at all.
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I’d say the British Labour party is now occupying that space with trans people, but the Democrats are more socially liberal.
Democratic economics is about the same as the 90s, building on the foundations set then but no change in plan, while the Republicans have moved into solid fascism for both social and economic policy.
edit: I meant to reply to @MikeTheBard
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