Fresh off the 2006 Equality Ride (www.equalityride.com), this summer Soulforce is taking on Don't Ask, Don't Tell in a way that unequivocally illustrates how this policy is the worst example of government-sanctioned discrimination. People think DADT is a good compromise, but that is not the case. It requires 65,000 GLBT service members to live a lie in the closet during service. It has caused over 10,000 soldiers to be kicked out of the military. It has cost the government over $364 million to replace those discharged for being gay. It denies the right to serve our country to any competent, fit, intelligent, openly gay young adult, and in the 13 years of this policy, not one openly gay person has said, Let me serve. In short, DADT makes the GLBT community second-class in this country.

So Soulforce is going to go where the oppression is greatest. Military recruitment centers are the equivalent of a segregation era lunch-counter that will not serve us. Gay youth across the country are going to walk into a center, ask to serve, and when he or she is rejected (as it is against federal law to allow an openly GLBT person to serve), engage in non-violent civil disobedience by sitting-in with friends, family and allies. We are sincere in our motives and deeply rooted in our commitment to justice. The sit-ins will start in Minneapolis in August and expand outward week by week to a total of 30+ cities.

We are looking for supporters and city organizers as well as military recruits willing to take a stand for equality in America. There is already planning underway for an action in Far Rockaway, NJ and Times Square, NYC. Feel free to join these efforts or spearhead a local campaign in your hometown. Please, contact Alexey@equalityride.com or Haven@soulforce.org or Jake@soulforce.org for more information. Visit The Right to Serve MySpace group page at www.myspace.com/righttoserve

The trial run in mid-June generated the following coverage:

http://wcco.com/local/local_story_150075043.html
http://www.kare11.com/news/news_arti...storyid=126041
http://www.kstp.com/article/stories/S16629.html?cat=1
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...061000802.html

You can also read the rationale for our actions in the article Haven Herrin wrote on the Advocate online: http://www.advocate.com/exclusive_detail_ektid31759.asp

god help us all if you're in the military

i hate links.

So how can they kick you out of the military if it's legal to be a gay member of it?

Isn't that entirely illegal and discriminatory? Obvious question, yeah, but this is pretty disgusting for a country that thinks it's at the head of the worldship motif here. America's just like any other country they have professed disagreements against... It's sad because it's the government not listening to the people. The church is state, apparantly.

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"the height of arrogance is the height of control of those who create God in their own image"

Of course I don't necessarily believe in the DADT policy but there have been enough cases where violence was taken upon someone that noted vocally & openly they were gay.

All sodomists should be ejected from our military.

Right on, and they should kick out the coloreds while they're at it.

ZT3dster for prez.

Typical response from a barking lunatic of the left. "Coloreds" and sodomists have nothing in common as to what we are discussing here.

You're not discussing anything. You simply stated that sodomists should be kicked out of the military.

True ,then dipstick obliquely called me a racist. My response was that race has nothing to do with the matter at hand.

*sigh*

Are you always this slow, or just stoned?

edit-Oh, you're the dipstick to whom I was referring. A thousand pardons.

I'm sorry. You're probably in college.

discrimination = discrimination

Why is that?

Two people have aids. One is straight who got it through a blood transfusion. The other is a sodomist who got it from an aids packet injected through his anus. You have the power to cure one of them, and the other will die.

How long will it take you to decide whom to cure?

Are you serious?

It is not discrimination. It is called commonsense, which is something you sorely lack.

Once again with the advice I have no authority to give: Troll. Psycho. Wants attention. Will not be swayed by logic, reason, or anything else. Ignoring him and going on with our own discussions would be the thing that would bother him most.

[This has been an unreqested public service annoucement]

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We are sorry, the mind you have reached is not a working mind.
Please hang up and die again.
Please hang up,
And die again.

fit to serve our country. anal-sex stereotype. not seeing the "commonsense" connection.

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INSPIRATION. LIBIDO. APPETITE.
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The KKK and like "minds" also thought it was common sense that black people, etc. were inferior.

and fyi, I'm not interested in your estimation of my intelligence or common sense at all, your opinion means as much to me as a wad of chewing gum stuck to the bottom of my shoe.

I'd like to hear your reasoning.