ANCHORAGE — David Hall got an unexpected call a week ago Tuesday, just after 9 p.m. On the line: the Presidential Inauguration Committee. Would he be willing to be a co-chair for the inaugural celebration? Citizen co-chairs are people whose stories help illustrate the president’s first-term accomplishments. The president wanted him there because of Hall’s efforts to overturn Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.
The president. Wow. Hall said yes. Less than a week later he found himself in the Oval Office, sitting across from President Barack Obama.
Hall lives in Washington, D.C. now, but his path to the White House began in Anchorage, in 2004. Back then, he was an Air Force veteran and the top cadet in his Air Force ROTC program at UAA, headed for pilot training, which was his dream. He was also gay and dating Jack Glover, another cadet.
They were discreet. Most people thought they were best friends, but they did confide in another student about their relationship. Eventually that student told their superiors. Military lawyers began an investigation. Both men were discharged. (Glover was also a promising cadet. He ranked third in their class.)
Hall was in the Air Force for five years before he entered the ROTC program at UAA. During his service, he completed assignments in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, and was promoted to the rank of staff sergeant. In 2002, he earned a slot in highly-competitive pilot training. He grew up in the Army and had always wanted to wear a uniform. He still remembers what it felt like to wear his flight suit for the last time.
“(The discharge) was horrible, very upsetting,” Hall said when he spoke Tuesday by telephone with the Anchorage Daily News. “I think I looked at it and decided, ‘Well what am I gonna do now? I can sit here and have a pity party or I can move on.’ “
After their discharges, Hall and Glover moved to Washington. Hall took a job with what is now OutServe-Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, an organization that advocates for equality for gay people in the military. Glover found work with the Department of Commerce. They both became plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging DADT. Though their relationship ended, they remain close friends.
The lawsuit made its way through the courts, but they eventually lost, he said. That was 2010. The same year, Congress voted to repeal DADT. The president signed it into law. The repeal went into effect in 2011.
“Both of the senators from Alaska signed on to that,” Hall said. “I met with them several times to talk about the repeal.”
That would be Lisa Murkowski and Mark Begich. Rep. Don Young did not support the change.
At the White House last week, Hall met first with Michelle Obama. You might have seen him. He’s in a photo with her that went viral — not because of anything to do with him, but because it was the first time she was photographed with a new hairstyle.
“Her new bangs,” he said, laughing.
The White House was like a living museum, he said, with antique furniture and china. He found the president to be “very down to earth,” he said. He met with the president along with other citizen co-chairs.
“I think he tried to put us all at ease and talk to us as normal people.”
It was humbling, he said. Exciting. All that. He thought about the small town, Hanceville, Ala., where he went to high school.
“I would have never thought in a million years that one day I would be standing in the Oval Office talking to the president and thanking the president for the work he did for gay people.”
On Monday, Hall was escorted to a place in the seated section at the inauguration, where he had a good view of the president as he spoke. It was amazing to hear Obama mention marriage equality for gay people in such an important speech, before millions of people, he said.
“It just shows how far I think our country has moved on this issue,” he said. “It was one of the things I had always told people and one of the things I always believed, really, getting rid of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell would really help our country move forward.”
There is still work to be done for gays in the military, he said. Partners married in states where gay marriage is legal are not entitled to the same benefits as married straight couples in the military. There are also people who were not honorably discharged under DADT and do not have the benefits that come with military service.
Hall tried to re-enlist in 2011, after the repeal, but was unable to because of a knee injury. I asked if he considered himself an activist. He said no.
“It’s more of, you know, I just see there is something wrong and just making sure it’s corrected, that everyone is treated fairly in this country and everyone has the same shot.”
Comments (23)
Add commentI much preferred "Don't Tell,
I much preferred "Don't Tell, and I Won't Ask Cause I dont want to know"...
I don't
Requiring our service members to be fundamentally dishonest is never a good policy.
I haven't heard that our armed forces are crumbling with the implementation of the new policy. Have you?
Crumbling
What a typical line of nonsense I see posted about changes in the military causing it to crumble. I'm sure it was the same crumbling fear that was tosses out when blacks and women were actually allowed to be in the military without being subservient to the white males.
congratulations
to this young man. He lost the battle, but he's winning the war. Thank goodness for that.
Homosexuality is a mental
Homosexuality is a mental disorder.
The one shred,
of credibility you had, just went out the window noroadfugtive.
My issue is it isnt anyones
My issue is it isnt anyones dam business. I dont walk around introducing myself as a heterosexual. Dont know dont care. I dont want to know anyones sexual orientation except my partners. But I don't like discriminating based on it either. I just dont want to know. Keep it in the bedroom, people...
mental disorder Noroadfugitive?
Homosexuality is NOT a mental disorder. It is not listed in the DSM-IV at all. However, pathological stupidity is on the table of consideration for diagnostic inclusion in the manual. Are you up for a case study?
Homosexuals...
People who have the right to live their lives just as you do yours. I try not to tell other people how they must live their lives as I'm not a control freak. I could care less what you do in your house as it doesn't affect me in mine.
Constitutionally, marriage licensing should not even exist. In Loving vs. Virginia the US Supreme Court ruled that southern states couldn't stop interracial marriages through licensing. The ruling should have been that states couldn't issue licenses at all as marriage is technically a religious union protected under the First Amendment. If the government stayed out of marriage, there wouldn't be an issue today now would there? It wouldn't be about insurance or the IRS, it would be about you, your God, your family and your friends. That's how it was meant to be.
But there are those who always know better than you and will tell you, you have a mental disorder, you're going to Hell, you're going to corrupt my offspring, you're stupid. When it comes to those people, just remember, those that spend all their time talking about others and pointing fingers are just trying to keep the finger off of them cause they're the ones that should really be looked at.
--Preface: I believe
--Preface: I believe homosexuality should be legal and that homosexuals should have all the rights as everyone else---
However; It was considered a disorder until 1973:
--In the words of the prominent journalist and same-gender sex activists, Andrew Sullivan, in December of 1973 the APA, “…under intense political pressure…removed homosexuality from its official list of psychiatric disorders…”
Why is Gender Identity Disorder, Frotteurism, Sexual Masochism and Sadism, Transvestic Fetishism (cross dressing), etc considered a disorder and homosexuality is not?
Yeah
And being left-handed used to be a disorder too.
The issue with keeping it a secret... the military has many social functions where it's encouraged for couples to attend. Are you, KP, suggesting that they should not participate? That seems like discrimination.
Or is it just that they should hide it because you find it personally distasteful. That's a pretty dangerous standard to apply.
The more gnarly issue is with spouse benefits. If you're in the armed forces, your spouse is entitled to benefits such as healthcare, housing, shopping in the Exchange, moving costs...and if you were killed in the line of duty, your spouse would receive some sort of retirement benefits. Currently all of these benefits are denied same-sex partners. That wall will fall before too long, as it should.
Lat,Please note when the
Lat,
Please note when the American Psychiatric Association considered left handedness to be a disorder. I cant find it.
Regarding homosexuality,
One of APA's criteria for determining whether a condition is a psychological disorder is whether the condition results in a significant impairment of social functioning. The fact that homosexuals do not have the desire to engage in natural, procreative sex---the fact that homosexuals are essentially impotent with the opposite gender---is clearly a significant impairment of social functioning and persuasive evidence of a disorder.
Homosexuality is so physiologically unnatural and disordered that homosexuals have to rely on heterosexuals (or artificial means) to reproduce, since true homosexuals by definition do not engage in reproductive sex.
Homosexuality
"The fact that homosexuals do not have the desire to engage in natural, procreative sex---the fact that homosexuals are essentially impotent with the opposite gender---is clearly a significant impairment of social functioning and persuasive evidence of a disorder".
Nonsense. This suggests that the primary function of social structure is to allow and encourage procreative sex, and that not doing so is indicative of a genetic problem. First of all, that would define almost the entire human race, who have sex for fun over procreation, as having a disorder. Secondly, the inclusion of the word "impotence" is disingenuous - it is an attempt to equate a sexual disorder (inability to function sexually where desire is present) with sexual preference. Again, if applied to the heterosexual population, most of us would also be classified as having a disorder because all of us have plenty of people of the opposite gender with whom we would not be interested in procreating.
Third - the idea that social norms of a given time and geography are indicative of genetic and biological truth is absurd. The Latin word for left-handed is "sinistra", from which we get the word "sinister", because for many years the social European norm considered being left-handed indicative of sorcery. Thus, being left-handed could indeed result in poor social functioning simply because society was being an a$$hat, not because it was a disorder.
Homosexuality is observed in a wide variety of species other than human beings. Among mammals, gay individuals often contribute to child-rearing duties, distributing responsibility for the young across the entire group and not simply the reproducing pair.
Dust,I am not exactly sure
Dust,
I am not exactly sure of your point but,
“This suggests that the primary function of social structure is to allow and encourage procreative sex, and that not doing so is indicative of a genetic problem.” …exactly right. And not only the social structure but also the rules of nature (Darwin).
Also:
Impotency is a DSM noted disorder:
Persistent or recurrent inability to attain, or to maintain until completion of the sexual activity, an adequate [filtered word].
The disturbance causes marked distress or interpersonal difficulty.
So Homosexuals cannot
So Homosexuals cannot procreate and are impotent to the other gender, therefore they are denied their rights? How about the Heterosexual couple that cannot have children or the man that is impotent and cannot have sex with a woman, should we deny them their rights? We have men that beat their wives; men that rape; people that commit horrible, unspeakable crimes against others, and THESE people have rights, but God forbid let someone be Homosexual! OMG!!
Well...
Yes, impotence is a sexual disorder. My point was that you cannot claim that impotence and sexual preference are equivalent.
Early social structure contributed to the survival of the SPECIES, not necessarily the individual. Thus gay members of society contributed to that survival by helping raise the young as well as contributing to all the things necessary for society to endure. If the sole purpose of society were to have every single individual procreate, we would kill those past child bearing years, those who were sterile, uninterested in sex, or anybody else who wasn't interested in having babies.
The widespread prevalence of homosexuality in other mammal species suggests that it's perfectly normal, and is genetically coded to be passed on and be an enduring trait in the species.
My point regarding left-handedness was simply to say that for many years, society in general viewed being left-handed as a defect or moral disorder, with the result that those who were left-handed likely would have been classified as having "social difficulties". We no longer think that way regarding handedness. People who are gay may indeed have social difficulties, but the culprit is society, not their sexual coding.
hmmmm
"One of APA's criteria for determining whether a condition is a psychological disorder is whether the condition results in a significant impairment of social functioning."
Well that settles it! haha, noroad, I hope you know it takes more than one symptom to determine mental disorder. I mean, you do understand this, right? Otherwise I think by your logic we can all assume that you suffer from a mental disorder. Which is entirely possible, considering the garbage you post on here. Maybe it's time you get help. It appears like you are lashing out, maybe for the attention you desire?
And the APA specifically states that homosexuality is NOT a mental disorder. Apparently you like to throw facts around when they seemingly suit your bias, but conveniently forget them when they don't. You can try to rile up liberals on here and I'm sure you felt good posting that first one-liner. Funny thing is, it only served in making you look like a homophobic douche. You know what they say about homophobia...
By all that is holy...
...I'm hoping that YOU are a homosexual, Noroad.
So you won't reproduce... Though that would be difficult to accomplish anyway with your head planted so far up your ass.
Lat, Chessy Hhhhmmmm...you
Lat, Chessy
Hhhhmmmm...you always know when the people you are debating are flummoxed because they turn to name calling. Regardless, you calling me a homosexual doesnt bother me because I don't see it as a bad thing, but rather a condition that makes life/reproduction more difficult...and under those guideline should still be considered a disorder by the APA.
Noroad
You are so way off base - many homosexual men, in the past, have hidden their true selves, married women and fathered children just fine. Have you been under a rock?? I'm so very happy that my LGBT friends no longer have to hide who they are from society for fear of not being accepted, or being refused employment. That's what made life difficult in the past. And unless you, yourself, fall into this group, you have no idea what the REAL difficulties are for a person who is LGBT.
this is an accomplishment?
1. scraping for scraps;
2. making sexuality an issue in the armed services is despicable and indicative of a severe disconnect with the reality of the word SERVICE. Only a liberal-minded shitbird that never served and has no notion of service would laud this as an achievement;
3. the only place sexuality comes into play in the US military is combat arms assignments. It is bad policy to have women in combat arms because if they get taken POW I guarantee it would adjust foreign policy and operational objectives. Americans will not stomach images streaming across their internet of the first female service member violated by the enemy.
Grendel, on your 3rd point
Grendel, on your third point about women in combat, in the first Gulf War we had female military members taken hostage. It was horrible for them, as I'm sure it was terrible for any man that was captured. I watched the news. There was no collective turning of the American stomach.
Since well before the first Gulf War and to a much greater degree since then, US military women have engaged in combat, have been killed, have performed heroically, just as US military men have. The difference is that they weren't in the infantry - just in a unit co-located or attached to the infantry, but defined as something else.
you jerkhead!
I had to say that; no offense.
1. women serving in the armed forces do incredible stuff. I have met more than my match and called her Ma'am or Gunny.
2. problem is that if she gets taken by savages and gets savaged it will change US policy directed toward the strategic objective because the media will seize upon it. They are slimey that way and have no conscience or accountability.
3. this speaks to the greater arena of committing only when we are committed to the cause. I got tired of non-causes and non-commital leadership. I got tired of touching down in places where people didnt like us and there was no good way out of it.
4. reversal of dont ask, dont tell is an achievement? I dont care who you are scrogging (not you, jerkhead - the service-member), just dont make your freaking-off time an issue to the good order and morale of my unit. That is what a leader would address, if we had one.