So I’m sort of taken aback at how far off the deep end, in my opinion, Aaron Belkin and the Palm Center seem to have gone lately. I really started noticing this trend last year when Belkin started taking sharp and vitriolic aim at allies within the DADT repeal community for not supporting what many felt to be a naive policy proposal for 2009 – his executive order option.

Now I do not shy away from criticizing those within our own community when criticism is due, but I don’t see an honest disagreement about the wisdom of a policy option as a legitimate reason to criticize with the vitriol with which Belkin did to some of our allies last year, including selfless heroes like Congressman Patrick Murphy. Then, there was the inexcusable actions of certain Palm Center staff surrounding a certain meeting of activists and lobbyists in February to which the Palm Center understandably wasn’t invited (uhh, because it claims to not want to be involved in activism and lobbying!).

Lately, more strange behavior from Belkin and Palm has emerged. First, just a few weeks ago, Palm prematurely jumped onto the bandwagon of the developments in SLDN’s Fehrenbach case and put out a paper on what the gov’t should and should not do in that case amid delicate ongoing negotiations between Fehrenbach’s legal team, SLDN, and the Defense Department. This was done without the approval Fehrenbach’s lawyers at SLDN and without the approval of his private counsel. SLDN and Fehrenbach were about ready to go public with an injunction request in court, and Palm jumped the gun ahead of them to the dismay of Fehrenbach’s legal team.

Then, Aaron Belkin has taken lately to putting out a falsehood with respect the newly formed dynamic duo known as OutServe. That group inaccurately refers to itself as the first active duty group of gay and lesbian troops, which it is not. The duo at OutServe have been notified numerous times that this is a patently false statement, yet they continue to put out the falsehood (so much for “Integrity First”). And now, Belkin is propogating the falsehood too. In his latest Huffington Post piece, he wraps up the article by re-stating this untruth. And the strangest thing about it is that Belkin actually helped the founder of the real first group for active duty gay/lesbian troops found that group way back in 2003-ish.

I don’t believe in robbing people of credit that they deserve for historic moments, especially knowingly. Not cool.

If I were to be completely fair, I would probably reduce the LGBT media’s proportion of responsibility to just below a third, but splitting it into neat thirds is parsimonious. Also, I feel the need to point out that this is my own personal blog which, along with the personal blogs of a number of other troops and veterans on the Servicemembers United website, does not represent the viewpoint or position of Servicemembers United as an organization. However, I recognize the perception problem that this can create and I do, as always, embrace the hybrid nature of Servicemembers United and of my own personal role in the DADT repeal movement. Now with all of that said, let’s proceed.

It has become increasingly frustrating to see the LGBT media utilize a formulaic style of reporting in covering the DADT issue of late. Often, gay journalists in Washington seek out commentary from those who are nowhere near being experts on this issue just to preserve their access to certain organizations. Is it really serving the best interest of their readers and the community to print some painfully generic line from someone who knows little about the complex nuances of the DADT issue and who works for an organization that does the absolute minimum necessary on the issue in order to pacify donors and board members? A community that needs sound, critical, sharp reporting answers with a resounding NO.

Similarly, is it really helpful in the long run for gay journalists who report on the activity of organizations to just accept what their paid spokespeople say wholesale without any sort of critical eye or context with respect to whether that activity is useful and/or sufficient? Indeed, it is not.

Gay journalism has made strides forward over the years, especially gay political journalism, and it has benefited from healthy competition, especially in Washington. But I have sensed a stagnation lately as formulaic and “easy” cop-out stories have, at times, sufficed for adequate coverage of the gay organizational and political scene.

Senator Reid is largely responsible for the legislative schedule on the floor of the Senate. When legislation is ready, he and his team decide when to schedule it for floor debate and a vote. Senator Carl Levin, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has affirmed over and over again that NDAA, which was reported out of Senator Levin’s committee back in May, is 100% ready to go on the floor of the Senate.

Senator Reid has thus far refused to schedule a vote for NDAA. Judging by other organizations’ email blasts and public rhetoric, one might have expected NDAA to come to the floor as early as June. This, however, was certainly unrealistic. Although it would have been nice to get this vote over with in June and we certainly need to keep the pressure up on the Senate leadership, I do not subscribe to the tactic of intentionally misleading the public for the sake of generating low-yield pressure.

July, however, was definitely a more realistic target month for bringing NDAA to the floor. Given the fact that NDAA is ready to go any day, it is the responsibility (and right now, the failure) of Senator Reid to bring the bill to the floor for debate and a vote. Now that July has ticked away, we’re now left to cross our fingers and hope that Senator Reid is willing to schedule this bill – which is vitally important in and of itself, not to mention with the DADT repeal provision included – sometime after the Senate returns from August recess after Labor Day.

The individuals and organizations working on the repeal of DADT have been focusing much of their efforts in July on figuring out how to pressure Senator Reid to bring NDAA to the floor, and this strategic stalemate has not been a secret. Now, at Netroots Nation, activists and bloggers are getting multiple opportunities to engage Senator Reid directly and, as far as I can tell and as far as has been reported, no one has pinned Senator Reid down on when he plans to bring NDAA to the floor and, more importantly for the sake of accountability in front of a crowd that is critically important to his reelection effort right now, on why he has so far refused to bring this important piece of legislation up for a vote in July.

What’s interesting is that this is the same crowd of activists that criticizes establishment organizations for not holding elected officials accountable with their access. And this should sting a little coming from me because each and every person who knows me also knows that I have been one of the main critics of the larger organizations that I personally see abdicating their responsibilities on behalf of our community. But now that the tables are turned and its the individual activists that have the access, these critics seem to be doing the same thing. What is it with our community? I just don’t get it.

I’m only 28 years old, so the HIV issue has never really felt too close to home for me. Even though I’m a “gay activist,” I don’t think I’ve ever really known anyone close to me who has had or has contracted HIV. I’ve certainly met people who were positive, and I’ve known people who have been close to others who were positive. But this was the first time this disease has hit THAT close to home, and I’m still a little traumatized.

I actually feel like I’m about to throw up now. He’s so much stronger than I am about this. Or was he just putting on a brave face for me? Damn this sucks. How do we still have a problem with this disease in the second decade of the 21st century?

One of the things I always wanted to do while I was in the military was utilize the Army’s Green-to-Gold program to go back to college at some point. I originally left college after my freshman year (back before I joined the Army) largely because neither I nor my parents could afford it anymore. Finishing college is something that I never lost the desire to do, and upward mobility was something that I had my sights on even while I was still in. Since I’ve already been to college, and to grad school, I now plan to go back in as an officer now.

But over the past 8 years, my interests and passions have changed as I’ve grown and matured. Now, my passion is advocacy and law, and the perfect combination of those two sets of passions (military and law) is JAG. So as soon as we finish up this fight to get the DADT law repealed, this one hopes to head off to law school and go back into the Army as a JAG lawyer. Sure, most military lawyers don’t have Ph.D.s, but maybe that’ll be useful in the future as TJAG.

As good as it was to catch up and spend time with Kristin, I left Ft. Bragg simply heartbroken at what she very matter-of-factly told me about her life as an Army wife, the effect of multiple deployments on her husband and family, and the lack of seriousness with which the struggles they have to go through are taken.

I still very much love both DOD and the Army. Sure these institutions have their problems, and sure getting discharged under DADT myself was sort of traumatic, but despite these things I can still say that I truly love the military. That’s why I was just so saddened to see the military so miserably failing Kristen, her husband, her family, and so many others like them.

Kristen’s husband (I’ll call him Rob) is currently on his 4^th deployment to Iraq right now. She told me that the problems with PTSD began after his return from his first deployment, although after the second and third one she began learning the pattern of emotions that one goes through during and after deployment. I think learning and understanding more about PTSD has helped her cope with the stresses on her husband and her family a little more, although she certainly did have to learn everything she knows the hard way. She told me that so many young couples break up after the service member’s first deployment because the spouses simply don’t understand what’s going on, because PTSD isn’t taken seriously by many in the Army, because spouses get frustrated at pull-away during deployments and begin cheating, and so on. There’s just so much I learned or had reinforced that I can hardly get it all out.

Kristin said that when Rob is home, especially after his last deployment, he stays glued to the TV playing video games all night and sleeps all day on days he doesn’t have to work. Now he’s very distant towards their three young children (all under 10), he wants to develop friendships with other women, and he just has a sort of hopeless outlook about the future. Kristin has tried numerous things to try to help him, repair his relationship with her and the kids, and encourage Rob to go back to school or put in his warrant officer packet. Nothing seems to be working, and the Army doesn’t seem to give a damn.

In addition to all of this, I was surprised to hear about a number of other ways in DOD seems to be screwing over military families. For example, now that they’ve lucked up and moved out of the cramped and run down military housing and into a newer and nicer neighborhood on post (run by private contractors, of course), the Army now makes them pay for electricity. So I presume this means that if something happens and a military family can’t pay their electric bill this month, their power will get shut off in the dead of winter? What happened to the Army taking care of its soldiers and their families? Isn’t expense-free, on-post housing supposed to be a benefit of military service, especially for the families who don’t have a choice in a lot of this?

I could go on more, but I’ll stop here. Hearing about this, talking about this, and writing about this just makes me angry. The next time you hear someone say, “Thank you for your service,” hit them up for 50 bucks, then take it over to the first military family you can find and give it to them to put towards their electric bill at their on-post housing.

Associated Press: A Word for Many DoD Translators? Unfit