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Representative Tauscher Calls for End to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”

Representative Ellen Tauscher proposed legislation Monday that would repeal the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that bans gay and lesbian individuals from openly serving in the military. The policy prohibits the military from inquiring about a service member’s sexual orientation, but also calls for the discharge of anyone who acknowledges being gay or who engages in homosexual activity.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Tauscher wants to hold hearings on the policy and seeks to have a commission study it.

In a letter to her colleagues, Tauscher wrote “It makes no sense to discharge capable service members for something as irrelevant as their sexual orientation…I believe that it is always the right time to ‘right a wrong.’ With fifteen years of social progress and the recent sea of change we have witnessed in the national political landscape, I am further encouraged that now is definitely the time to act,” according to Agence France Presse.

Sources:

Feminist Daily Newswire 5/22/08; Agence France Presse 3/2/09; San Francisco Chronicle 3/3/09

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