#BARNEY FRANK TRUMP TWEET TRIAL#
When the trial began in November 2010, Dane believed she would be asked under oath if she were gay. They were trying, Dane said she learned, to prove that Dane had a girlfriend, in order to argue that she had alleged the encounter was an assault to avoid getting caught cheating.ĭuring the meeting, Dane said she told the defense lawyers she couldn’t share that information because of DADT, and would have to retain her own counsel to ensure she wouldn’t be incriminated. In the investigation and trial that followed the assault, Dane said lawyers for the Air Force, who were mounting a defense of the alleged assailant, asked her during a pre-trial meeting if she was gay. The waiver Jennifer Dane signed when she joined the Air Force in 2009. “I knew that I had a bigger calling,” she said.īut a year later, she was sexually assaulted - an incident that led her to fear that she would be outed. Serving in the Air Force was her dream, and she was preparing to stay closeted in order to live it. When she joined the Air Force in 2009 she signed a waiver that said she would be discharged for “engaging or attempting to engage in a homosexual act,” “stating that he or she is a homosexual or bisexual,” or “marrying to attempting to marry an individual of the same sex.” Sixteen years later, Jennifer Dane knew that she was going to have to hide a part of herself. “A lot of the reason that I got out was looking down the road and seeing that I was always going to have to hide this part of myself,” she said. She declined to extend her military service past her first five-year commitment.
“The burden of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ was much more dramatic than the burden of being gay,” Altenburg said. She didn’t come out to soldiers who were under her command because she didn’t want them to feel conflicted about reporting her. We just liked the care packages!’” Altenburg said.ĭespite those assumptions, Altenburg couldn’t fully be herself. Years later, one of the sergeants acknowledged that they assumed the two were a couple. She had a girlfriend, whose name was on care packages filled with candy, which Altenburg would share with her fellow troops. 22, 2010 - 10 years ago today - when President Barack Obama signed into law the repeal of DADT.īut long before that, the law meant that Altenburg could not fully be herself, even as everyone seemed to know – and be fine with – her truth. For the next 17 years, many gay and lesbian service members described living and serving in limbo, knowing there was no longer a ban on them per se, but that their careers would still be at risk if they were found out. The compromise was the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) policy, which said gay service members were not required to disclose their sexual orientation, but could still be discharged if they were discovered to be gay.
Sam Nunn, the Democratic chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee at the time ( he later changed his view). “The burden of ‘Don’t Ask, ‘Don’t Tell’ was much more dramatic than the burden of being gay.”Ĭlinton had made a campaign pledge to lift the ban, but once in office faced opposition from senior military and congressional leaders, including Georgia Sen.
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