Students at Scituate High School organized a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” discussion with Massachusetts veterans last night. The event was open to the public and was attend by 50 community members. After hearing from veterans, attendees made calls to Senator Scott Brown urging him to follow through this year on his promise to repeal DADT.
Travis Hengen spoke at the event about his experience as a gay veteran discharged under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”. Travis said that the law needs to be repealed so “troops serving in Iraq don’t have to worry about using the wrong pronoun when talking about their relationships back home and can focus completely on the mission at hand.”
John Affuso, who also served under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” commented on Senator Scott Brown’s recent statement supporting repeal. “It was great to see Senator Brown endorse repeal,” said Affuso, “but we really need to see him show some leadership and make sure this comes up for a vote this year.”
Caroline McCall, a student at Scituate HS and one of the event’s organizers, said “We felt that since this issue is such a pressing issue, we wanted to plan this event to help inform the community and show that so many people care about making sure we do right by our troops by honoring and supporting everyone that wants to serve.”
In anticipation of a Senate vote on the Defense bill, volunteers at MassEquality’s headquarters in Boston have been mobilizing pro-repeal veterans to contact Senator Brown’s Boston and D.C. offices. You can read a Bay Windows article about this work here.
If you are in Massachusetts and want to get involved, contact me at karl.bach@hrc.org. And no matter where you live, find out about actions you can take TODAY at www.hrc.org/repealDADT.
