Mark Warner and Jim Webb Vote for DADT Repeal

While I am sure they will be catching Hell from the Neanderthals and knuckle draggers who are all too plentiful in Virginia - including the Hampton Roads area where comments on local news articles reveal both intense religious based bigotry and great ignorance based on spelling errors that would make a grade schooler blanch - both of Virginia's senators did the right thing in the end and voted for repeal of DADT. Personally, in the lead up to all of this, I had some testy communications with Webb's office and harsh words with Democrat officials. I am thankful that Webb finally recognized that DADT was wrong. Both Senators released statements on their vote to repeal and the Virginia Pilot has highlights. As for Jim Webb, whom I thank for his vote, here's what he said in his statement:
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“We need to, first of all, understand what this is and what it is not. The question is not whether there should be gays and lesbians in the military. They are already there. According to General Ham, who conducted this extensive study, approximately the same percentage of the military is gay and lesbian as in our general population.
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“The question is not about whether anyone should be able to engage in inappropriate conduct as a result of this policy, because we will not allow that and we will be very vigorous in our oversight of the Department of Defense to make sure that does not occur.
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“The question is whether this policy, as now enacted, works in a way that on the one hand can protect small unit cohesion--or to sort that out--and on the other, allow people to live honest lives.
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We have a Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who had an extensive career in surface arfare starting with small destroyers and up to commanding fleets, saying he believes the policy should change and that it can work. We have the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, a Marine, saying he believes this policy should change and it can work. Most interestingly, we have General Ham, who conducted this study—an infantry officer and former enlisted Army soldier whose religious beliefs caused him concern about homosexuality—at the same time saying this policy can be changed and that it should be changed.
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With this understanding and with the notion that we need to be putting a policy into place that allows an open way of living among people who have different points of view, I'm going to support this legislation.”
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The opponents of DADT, of course, believe that only their point of religious belief should be validated. As is sadly the case more and more with the Christianists, it's all about them and their generally intolerant, fear based and hate-filled beliefs that matter. Everyone else can go to Hell literally and figuratively in their view, This mind set is not what America is or should be about. One can only hope for the day when such people are far fewer in number.