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There was a President of this country, a good but flawed man, who took office with a promise:  he would make it so if a man loved a man and a woman loved a woman, they would be welcome to fight in his army.  It was a wild claim, this promise, and his opponents took control of his Congress two years later.  The President’s plan to free the gays was going to be killed.  The President was faced with two options: let his army invade the personal lives of its gay soldiers…or create a loophole that would protect gay soldiers if they kept their lives a secret.

With a heavy heart, in 1993, President Clinton started Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

The opposing Congress was never going to let Clinton succeed.  The gays were pariahs.  They had been suffering for over ten years under a hideous plague.  Centuries of misunderstanding surrounded them.  Let them fight?  Never.

Don’t Ask Don’t Tell became the accepted law of the land.  It was the best they could ask for.

But the plague’s horror receded.  With each passing year, it became impossible to not know someone who was gay.  Truth, honesty and love came into clearer focus.

Clinton left his office and welcomed a simple man’s life.  His successor was not so kind.  A stubborn and arrogant man, the son of another President, Bush led our country into two reckless wars in a distant sand-strewn land.  It was a place of chaos and misery.

And so the children born in the age of the plague went to fight those wars for him.  And they fought it for years.  And years.  And years.

2003, ten years after Don’t Ask Don’t Tell became law, war began.

Gay soldiers have families waiting for them back here.  If they must keep their lives a secret, how will their loved ones know if they’re okay?  Could the soldier write a letter to a man without code, without it being intercepted?  Some gay families have children.  How can they reach their mother and father?  Must their letters and calls be in code as well?

Later that year, a law was stricken down that had previously made the very lives of gays illegal.  But Bush didn’t like that.  A prideful man, he struck back at us.  If a man could love a man legally, Bush would then create a law so they could never marry in his America.  The law was defeated.  And Bush, revealed finally in his cruelty, left office in disgrace.

But Bush’s troublemaking would not stop there.  His poor regulations, irresponsible wars and friendships with large companies resulted in America’s money disappearing, as if overnight.  The people of this country became angry and desperate.

His successor took on many burdens at once.  Obama would not only aim to return America its money, but also succeed where Clinton failed: free America’s army to the open gays.  He claimed he could banish Don’t Ask Don’t Tell so it would not return.

The country was worn thin by war and hardships.  The gays, who had never been able to trust a single elected official before, wanted to believe this man.  He had our cautious trust.

Many soldiers thrown out because they were gay stood up to call for the law’s ending.  Loudest and bravest among them was Lieutenant Choi.  Where other advocates were timid, Choi threw himself into danger.  Choi worked tirelessly to campaign for the death of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.  He was arrested several times for doing just that.  He worked himself into exhaustion.

Obama was unable now to shrink away from his promises.  He would kill Don’t Ask Don’t Tell through Congress, but first, a study must be made.  A study of not-gay soldiers, and how they felt about fighting next to gay ones.  A study was not performed as to how we felt about it.  Our feelings were considered well-documented, and most importantly, irrelevant.

While we waited to learn about straight soldiers’ feelings, we knew of one straight soldier who believed in us.  Patrick Murphy, soldier in Bush’s war, left the army to become a man of Congress.  He made it his office’s priority to be the tip of the spear on the death of this law.  He never swayed.

We seemed to be near the end.

But like Clinton before him, Obama fell victim to his opponents’ scheming.  His Congress was overtaken by enemies.  And Murphy, for his bravery and kindness to us, lost his seat to an opponent.

Our allies were crippled, our enemies closed in, and the clock was running out.  If Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was not killed by Christmas, its tyranny would remain in place for at least another two years.

Obama and his allies acted quickly.  They hid the repeal inside another law, one that gave money to the army and was sure to pass.  But the trick didn’t get past McCain.

McCain wanted Obama’s office but was defeated.  McCain was very old, stuck in his ways, unable to accept change, and he became driven by fear, envy and  impotent rage.  McCain successfully prevented the repeal from passing.

But, finally, the Army Survey was ready.  It was a miracle.  Many of the soldiers didn’t care if those they fought with were gay.  Attitudes were changing.

As we learned from the plague, such progress moves quickly in times of tragedy.

There was a young boy in Indiana.  His name was Billy Lucas.  Billy was gay.  He was bullied by kids who learned to do it from men like McCain.  Billy joined an all-too-rapidly growing number of gay kids who were ending their lives because of their pain.

A newspaperman, Dan Savage, heard about Billy Lucas’s tragic actions and started a movement, small at first, where gays and not-gays from all over the world could share their strength with these gay kids.  The movement grew.  And grew.  And grew.

The movement grew so much it reached Washington.  Obama sent a message.  Many in Congress sent one, as well.

The story of these kids revealed such a long-hidden horror, were filled such an impossible sadness, that such casual hatred became increasingly more difficult for those in Congress.

We had one last chance.

No more hiding.  Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’s repeal would have its own bill.  It would not hide inside another law like a gay soldier would hide under Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

Our allies Pelosi and Murphy, in a courageous final action before they left their seats, passed the repeal in its first stage, the House of Representatives.

Then came the Senate.  McCain would try again to kill it with lies and fearmongering.  But something happened he failed to anticipate.  A handful of Senators from his side, led by Susan Collins, broke from their party and voted for repeal.

Then came the final vote tally.  We needed 60.

We got 65.

A cry rang out in my home, and 17 years later, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell crumpled against the floor of the Senate with a mundane finality.

At Midnight, the last remains of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell washed out into the Atlantic.  Gay soldiers everywhere celebrated in big ways…

And small ways…

The story isn’t over.  Not yet.  Because Clinton was compelled to sign another law before he left office.  The Defense of Marriage Act.  DOMA.

So, as one, we look from the dormant volcano of DADT to the higher peak of DOMA, ready to scale it.

And my hope is that while we look up at it, it looks down at us.  And it sees the body of DADT.  And its heart skips a beat.

THE END.