- It says, ‘Raise an army.’ It says absolutely nothing about race, color, creed, sexual orientation. How dare we, then, exclude a group of people who want to do the same thing you do right now, something that is honorable and noble? Get over it… Let’s just move on, treat everybody with firmness, fairness, dignity, compassion and respect. Let’s be Marines.
- Marine Corps. Sergeant Major Michael Barrett • Speaking to a group of Marines about the reversal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Barrett argues that, even to somebody who may harbor personal prejudice against homosexuals, is likely to strike a chord. Namely, the argument for a military free of discrimination that relies on the strength and valor of said military as the pitch. We’ve always thought this was an underplayed aspect of the DADT debate from last year — the mentality that our men and women in service couldn’t handle being around a homosexual soldier is not only an affront to our society’s standards of equality, but it seems to imply a pretty distasteful thing about the professionalism of our military forces. Having somebody in Barrett’s position say this is very important for a smooth transition to a more open military, so we thank him. source