As expected, President Barack Obama signed legislation today that repeals the 17-year-old “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” law that prevented gays and lesbians from serving openly in the U.S. military.
However, it could still take months for military officials to completely lift the old policy.
Still, Obama's signing caps a long, emotional and stressful struggle by activists like Tustin's Lt. Dan Choi.
The ex-Army man spoke about the DADT repeal to SouthFloridaGayNews.com:
“There are few people who get to put in all this effort and see the benefit from the rewards of their labor,” Choi reportedly said. “We know that it's a civil rights historic event, not only for gay civil rights, but for overall civil rights. Our work is not just for us, but as we take down the wall of our oppression, it really lowers the walls of other people's as well.”
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.