What First Lady Michelle Obama Should Have Said About Veteran's Day

One of my favorite email buddies, Michelle Obama, sent me a message on Veteran’s Day. I’m a big fan of the First Lady — being a hardworking professional spouse myself, she’s one of my top role models. But I think she missed something with yesterday’s email.

Michelle wrote about her great admiration for the men and women who serve in our military, and also for their families, who support and love them while they’re doing it. This is a big issue for Ms. Obama, one that she speaks on frequently. But there are some military families who don’t get to bask in the First Lady’s public admiration. They don’t even get to talk about their military loved ones for fear of ending their careers.

Gay and lesbian partners of military personnel live out a "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" hell all their own. As I wrote in the very first blog I ever posted on Change.org, when a gay or lesbian soldier is injured or killed on the battlefield, their partner will not receive a call from the military to let them know what happened. Those partners, some of whom are the legal wives or husbands of a soldier, cannot access any of the support groups or other resources which the military and private organizations provide for straight families. They get no help, they tell lies to their neighbors about where their spouse is so that no one will suspect and out the soldier. They cannot even say the word “love” in a phone call or email for fear someone else might hear or read it.

As the First Lady says, the spouses and families of our military members are heroes. But because of "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell," the gay and lesbian ones are treated like scum. Michelle Obama is not to blame for this. She can’t change the policy or push the stalled bill which would allow repeal through the Senate. But she can speak out, and we can send her a message calling on her to do so.

More than three quarters of Americans, not to mention the President and even the Pentagon agree that
"Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" needs to go. The policy is discriminatory and at odds with all the principles of honor and integrity which our military is supposed to be built on. Worse than that (as Cindy McCain and others have pointed out in a video for the No H8 Campaign) it perpetuates the idea that gays and lesbians are second class citizens and don’t deserve the same rights or status as their straight peers.

The more voices that speak out against this policy, the more the voices of fear and hatred which support it are drowned out. Michelle Obama can be a big, important voice — she has the ear of the world and of one particular guy in the White House who does wield a little authority.

Cristian Asher is a writer and graphic designer from California, where he and his husband are one of California's 18,000 legally married same-sex couples.