It is the opinion of the Court, Part One

To what I expect was no one's surprise,

[a] federal appeals court will allow the military to continue enforcing the law restricting the service of openly gay men and women in the military while a lower court decision that struck the law down as unconstitutional is being appealed.

The three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals had earlier granted a temporary stay, which it has now broadened. One judge dissented, saying he would have preferred to bar the military from dismissing members of the military under DADT during the appeal. The majority, however, using the typical excuse of "deferring" to the judgment of Congress and the military, saw nothing wrong with continuing to wreck people's chosen career through a policy they themselves admitted, albeit indirectly, subsequently could be found unconstitutional.

In Monday’s decision, the judges said the government had “persuasively” argued that Judge Phillips’s injunction “does not permit sufficient time for such appropriate training to occur, especially for commanders and servicemen serving in active combat.”

I'm sorry, but what kind of crap is that? This entire issue has been kicking around for years: Remember that when DADT was instituted at the end of 1993, it was the compromise, the "middle ground" between the military's witch hunts for The Gays on the one hand and gays and lesbians being able to openly serve on the other. That was seventeen years ago, folks. This is not a new deal.

Now, we've got various suits on the matter, we've got a House of Representatives that voted to kill the policy last May, we've got a president who swears he intends - not wants, intends - to end it, and we've got a Pentagon supposedly studying how - not if, but how - to do that. But we're supposed to act like this is some big shock and oh my, we need time, please give us time to adjust because, like, we never saw this coming and stuff? Please. All this talk about "training" is just an excuse for foot-dragging.

Frankly, it should be easy to reform the policy: Instead of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," it's "Don't Ask, Don't Care." When a law is passed to newly allow or ban some practice, we don't get "training" in how to obey the law, we don't get an "adjustment period" to get used to the idea. (Delays in implementation are almost invariably due to allowing time to set up new administrative procedures, which simply does not apply here.)

When bigots were told by the Civil Rights Act that they could no longer discriminate against blacks in areas like public accommodations, the start of that law was not put off until we could provide them "appropriate training." They were just told, we are all told in the face of new laws, that as of such and such a day, this is the law. Period. There is no reason why members of the military should be babied in a way no one else is.