Paul Ryan: Reversing DADT Repeal Would Be 'Step In The Wrong Direction'

Resisting urge to quote The Reverend King on timing.

 

Perhaps you should, for those of us not familiar with the quote and too lazy/ tired to look it up...

 

agreed, please do quote

 

The party still shouldn't win...but hey at least it's nice of him to say so lol

 

The Romney-Ryan ticket is getting desperate and their latest ploy is to suddenly play more "moderate" after Romney ran as far to the right as possible to win the Republican nomination. Don't fall for it. A President Romney would be a puppet to the hardcore Republican extremists in Congress who will zero mercy toward LGBTQ folk.

 

It's nice to see that Ryan isn't ignoring all of his values to win votes, unlike Romney.

 

Ryan: Preventing Gay People From Marrying Is A 'Universal Human' Value

 

Well, they arent going to win anyways, not unless the republicans efforts to commit massive voter fraud and voter supression succed (the florida Republican Party is in hot water for registering 108 dead people as republicans).

 

I'm not afraid of the Republican party winning this election. They've done and said too many stupid things to win.

 

I think the door may be shutting on any serious effort to reinstate DADT. The public overwhelmingly supports it, it's been shown to have no negative effects on military cohesion, I just can't imagine a future administration destroying their own political capital on it. But I know better than to be complacent about it, there are always forces in society looking to put hard-won civil rights back in the box.

 

Hm, and which party was the one fighting for voter id because the other party supposedly did this? Oh yes, the Republicans, winning the hypocrite of the day award on this one!

 

"See? We need these laws to protect Americans from us!"

 

This is from The Reverend King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail in which he responds to criticism from "liberal" clergy and community organizers about his and his followers' civilly disobedient actions there. I do not intend to compare the civil rights struggle for racial equality with the civil rights struggle for gender and sexual rights; rather my project here is to point out that a very eloquent man noted that fighting oppression is never well-timed:

One of the basic points in your statement is that the action that I and my associates have taken in Birmingham is untimely. Some have asked: "Why didn't you give the new city administration time to act?" The only answer that I can give to this query is that the new Birmingham administration must be prodded about as much as the outgoing one, before it will act. We are sadly mistaken if we feel that the election of Albert Boutwell as mayor will bring the millennium to Birmingham. While Mr. Boutwell is a much more gentle person than Mr. Connor, they are both segregationists, dedicated to maintenance of the status quo. I have hope that Mr. Boutwell will be reasonable enough to see the futility of massive resistance to desegregation. But he will not see this without pressure from devotees of civil rights. My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."​

Emphasis added, King. "Letter from a Birmingham Jail." African Studies Center, University of Pennsylvania