I’m completely repulsed by the actions of the state’s GOP. Rather than allow this bill to come to the floor for a vote, and go through the fair and legal legislative proccess, they’ve decided cause complete gridlock so that no work can be done! How any of them hope to be re-elected next term is beyond me. Given that this was an extraordinary session called by the governor which I take to mean that attendance is mandatory, shouldn’t there be some sort of legal recourse against these senators who refused to show up? I’ll certainly be glued to the 10 o’clock news tonight and we’ll have to see what happens tomorrow.

CAROLLA: “We just get it spoon-fed to us [that] everything’s great, everything’s perfect, there’s no difference between, you know a couple of dads, a couple of moms, couple of bis and a couple of pre-op transsexuals, and a mom and a dad…no difference. Now look, I’m all for gays adopting but let’s not mistake it for being nearly as good as a mother and a father. It’s not nearly as good as a mommy and a daddy… all things being equal, it is much better for a mother and a father to raise a child than it is two of anything, all things being equal.”

I’d fail him as well. I think it’s completely unconcionable that Obama has remained silent about LGBT issues, specifically DADT given his desire to refocus our goals in the middle east. We can’t continue to throw out decorated and competent service men and women like Lt. Dan Choi (see his interview with Rachel Maddow below) who are also Arab linguists that are vital to bringing our involvement in the middle east to a conclusion. I intentionally avoid using the term success because, to me, it has no place in what we are trying to accomplish in the middle east. I think our goal should be to extricate ourselves from this 8 year long quagmire with as little human loss as possible.

We currently have two wars in the middle east and a severe troop shortage – so much so that we’re now accepting convicts into the military and giving them loaded guns, but repealing DADT has to be pushed down the road because there is too much on President Obama and the Defense Secretary’s plates at the moment. I call bullshit! As much as it pains me to say as I’ve been an Obama supporter since the beginning of his campaign, it sounds like someone has fallen in love with his high approval rating and no longer wants to rock the boat. I’m seriously disappointed.

The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network responded with the following:

“Sec. Gates hardly gave a sound reason for kicking ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ down the road — or essentially back tracking on a campaign promise made by his Commander in Chief,” said Aubrey Sarvis, executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. “I trust the secretary was not speaking for President Obama, who, hopefully, will issue the call for repeal when he sends his Defense Department budget to Congress in a few weeks. This is about timely leadership.”

Sarvis continued. “It’s also called multitasking. Right now is the time — while we’re engaged in two wars — we need the most qualified men and women serving. This is not the time to keep firing linguists and intelligence analysts because of their sexual orientation. The longer the president and Pentagon delay the issue, the fewer linguists and intelligence analysts the Pentagon will have to call on to fight terrorism in Pakistan and Afghanistan.”

More than 800 hundred mission-critical service members (linguists, intelligence analysts) have been fired under the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law. Almost 13,000 total service members have been discharged since 1994. “It’s not easy or cheap to replace mission critical personnel,” said Sarvis. “And the serious felons we’re now recruiting probably don’t have a command of Arabic or Farsi, or know how to analyze intelligence.”