Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Have Any Excuses Anymore:
There's some sexual positions that you don't understand until they're done to you. Take, for instance, the rusty trombone. See, the name itself sounds kind of awful, conjuring all kinds of junkyard imagery. But, let's say, and why not, that you're a gay guy who's looking for something a little new, maybe not so different from stuff you've done already, but maybe something to enhance the ol' sex life. The rusty trombone combines two amazing things into one: analingus and handjobs. See, you get your lover behind you and, as he's eating your ass, he's yanking your crank. By gum, it's the Reese's peanut butter cup of fucking. Now many of you, straight and/or gay, are nodding, saying, sure, yeah, of course, that's obvious, who hasn't been rusty tromboned a time or two? But there's a good number of ya who are slappin' yer foreheads, thinkin', "Well, son of a bitch. That just makes so much sense." And there's probably a couple of you thinking, "Ew, never." We call those people "lost causes." (Oh, hey, for the ladies, there's the rusty trumpet, which, if you understand the brass section of the band, is a pretty obvious variation.)

Essentially, the findings of the Pentagon working group on the effects of repealing the always-idiotic "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy on gays in the military is pretty much one big goddamn shrug. Sure, sure, let's be honest here: there's a large number of soldiers who don't want to have anything to do with the gays, roughly 25-30% per question. And, to go even further, if you figure in the number of people who answered questions about unit cohesion and more with "Equally Positively and Negatively," well, there's a good chunk of soldiers who feel there will be some bad effects of dropping the policy.

But, and the point can't be made enough, who the fuck cares? All you're seeing is the number of ignorant people who fear the unknown or have lived with enforced homophobia. As the report notes, in 1949, 61% of white soldiers opposed integration of the armed services. You can bet that there's still about 10% or more of white soldiers who think the Marines oughta be lily-ass white, probably even more who think that women shouldn't be allowed to serve in combat. Again, who cares? You know what changed the minds of most whites in the military and in society? Just fucking doing it. People realized that blacks weren't going to rape the WACs and could shoot a fucking gun and bleed as much as a white soldier. It took a couple of decades, and included rank, awful racism, and even riots by soldiers, but that's the growing pains of a society that thinks it should advance rights, not diminish them.

Of course, Republicans in the Senate are going to block any repeal of DADT. Their putrid lie that they were just waiting for the Pentagon report won't make a goddamn bit of difference. We can demonstrate hypocrisy after hypocrisy, and it won't change a thing. Here's Alabama's Jeff Sessions in September on filibustering a DADT repeal: "The Senate’s consideration of a repeal of the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ law is premature because it preempts the findings of our commanders on an important military policy...Repealing the policy now, before the Pentagon's study is complete, sends the message that election-year politics are more important than military readiness." Let's all hold our breath to see if Sessions says that he'll vote to allow debate now. They're already saying that the report didn't report on the right issues. They're saying that the bigots in the military might leave. They're saying anything they can to avoid pissing off the yahoos.

Because the truth of the matter is what conservatives fear more than anything is that society stops giving a fuck about denying gays and lesbians equality. Because if a good chunk of that 25-30% suddenly realizes that queers are people, too, and are worthy of living lives without getting beaten and mocked, then that might cause them to question other things that they've been force-fed their whole lives, like religion and Limbaugh. Or, at the very least, one of the right's fundraising and vote-getting foundations will be swept away.

Poll after poll shows that the public wants the policy to end. 62% of mythical, magical independents say so, as opposed to 23% who hate gays. At some point, doesn't this become an issue that can be used by a Democrat running against, say, a Jeff Sessions?

And, despite how the Pentagon report tries to minimize it, President Harry Truman did issue an executive order in 1948 that integrated the military. What he also did was order a committee to be established to make it happen, not to study the effects of what if maybe perhaps please some nice Senators would allow it if we all beg and plead and offer to blow them on demand. Again, this was when over 60% of whites in the military opposed integration. In other words, he said, in essence, "If you can't stand the heat, go fuck yourself." Alas, such leadership does not exist in this cowardly age.