“My thinking shifted when I read that the military was firing translators because they are gay. According to the Government Accountability Office, more than 300 language experts have been fired under ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ including more than 50 who are fluent in Arabic. This when even Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently acknowledged the nation’s ‘foreign language deficit’ and how much our government needs Farsi and Arabic speakers. Is there a ‘straight’ way to translate Arabic? Is there a ‘gay’ Farsi? My God, we’d better start talking sense before it is too late. We need every able-bodied, smart patriot to help us win this war,” wrote Simpson.
He concluded: “Our differences and prejudices pale next to our historic challenge. Gen. Pace is entitled, like anyone, to his personal opinion, even if it is completely out of the mainstream of American thinking. But he should know better than to assert this opinion as the basis for policy of a military that represents and serves an entire nation. Let us end ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’ This policy has become a serious detriment to the readiness of America’s forces as they attempt to accomplish what is arguably the most challenging mission in our long and cherished history.”
Students mobilize
To be fair, Bossie had inspiration for his resolution from some classmen up the street.
When openly gay Brian Tweed, 28, of Limestone, began law school at UMaine last fall he met David Albright, 28, from Newton, Massachusetts. They discovered the LGBT Law Caucus had been inactive for years. The pair was looking for a project, and a reason to reactivate the group. When they heard that an Army attorney was scheduled to recruit on campus, they knew they had their issue.
Colleges and universities in the US — except those that accept no federal money — are required under federal law to allow military recruiters to visit the campus, or lose their federal funding (often a significant portion of a school’s budget). The law, the Solomon Amendment, was enacted to override individual schools’ nondiscrimination policies, which had previously been used to bar recruiters, on the grounds of the military’s codified discrimination. But the amendment does not bar campus protests.
“We have the right to voice our disapproval of the military’s policy, so we decided to do that,” says Tweed.
What began as an information table and posters eventually morphed into a movement that would outpace similar efforts in other states, all of which were part of a national campaign spearheaded by the Coalition for Equality at Boston College.
Tweed says he and other volunteers began encouraging students to sign letters against DADT to be sent to all of Maine’s Washington delegation.
The LGBT Law Caucus actually snapped into action prior to the reintroduction of Meehan’s legislation, but really gained steam afterward. The group contacted universities all over the state to get as many letters as possible.
The response was more than satisfying. Tweed and Albright went to Washington in March for SLDN’s Lobby Day, and delivered some 2000 letters to Snowe and Collins — the number amounted to two-thirds of all the letters delivered from schools nationwide that day.
