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Air Force Captain(Ret.) and winner of “Amazing Race” , Reichen Lehmkuhl, accepting Visibility Award at the 2006 Human Rights Campaign national dinner.
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Transcript Provided by YouTube:
00:00
mmm so why are we here that’s the
00:03
question I’ve heard but before I get to
00:06
that I’m going to tell you why we’re
00:07
here we’re particularly humbled this
00:10
evening to be around the likes of the
00:14
other honorees tonight such as Billie
00:15
Jean King it was obviously a pioneer and
00:21
Billie thank you so much Billie Jean
00:24
thank you so much for your speech when
00:26
when they dedicated the u.s. Tennis
00:29
Center to you that was amazing
00:31
you must be so proud Frank Kameny who
00:36
paved the way for generations of us to
00:38
follow Judy Shepard oh I just had the
00:45
privilege of shaking hands with
00:47
backstage and she’s just tireless in her
00:54
efforts and her activism and we’re so
00:56
proud of her and Matthew is always
00:58
always in our prayers and our thoughts
01:00
Judy yeah Mike Berman Mike Berman one of
01:06
so many straight people that stands with
01:08
us to align the forces of gays and
01:10
straights
01:11
to gain our rights
01:17
so while many of us are being uh this is
01:21
why I’m here now I’m gonna tell you why
01:22
I’m here
01:22
well many of us are so disgusted with
01:24
the war that’s actually going on right
01:26
now and we just want to shut our TVs off
01:27
and forget about what our administration
01:30
is doing overseas what we need to do is
01:32
actually remember some other things like
01:35
what’s actually happening with our LGBT
01:38
service members serving overseas in Iraq
01:41
other countries and in this country
01:51
yeah the US military is practicing one
01:55
of the last legal human rights abuses
01:57
left in this country today yeah the
02:03
armed forces in the United States still
02:05
has a ban on homosexuals in the military
02:06
and many people forgot that we have the
02:10
ban because someone brought up a phrase
02:13
called Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Don’t Ask
02:16
Don’t Tell did nothing
02:18
it did not lift any kind of a ban it did
02:20
not change the way people were being
02:21
treated in the military and I have
02:23
first-hand knowledge of this I’ve just
02:27
spent under three years writing in my
02:28
book which is now finally published this
02:30
week called here’s what we’ll say
02:32
growing up coming out in the US Air
02:35
Force I chronicled the secret society of
02:37
gay cadets that I formed at the academy
02:40
to get by and not be persecuted or
02:42
thrown in jail for being gay there are
02:44
about 50 of us and we would meet in
02:46
secret the book also chronicles all of
02:48
the lies that I had to tell to make it
02:50
through the US Air Force Academy as a
02:52
gay cadet my number one goal in life
02:56
right now is to end the ban the abuse
02:59
and the expulsion of our LGBT US service
03:02
members from our nation’s military
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so please please understand how sincere
03:16
I am and what an honor it is for me to
03:18
be able to stand up here on this
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platform in front of the Human Rights
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Campaign national dinner to let my
03:23
message off just one more time while
03:27
many of us wait I already said that hmm
03:31
I’m a little nervous I’m sorry so I want
03:36
to get back to Don’t Ask Don’t Tell I
03:37
don’t know if you know this but it made
03:38
everything worse there have been 10,000
03:41
over 10,000 military discharges since
03:43
the inception of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell
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our government has spent 360 million
03:49
dollars on these discharges making this
03:51
happen the obvious kicker is that
03:54
they’re using our tax dollars to pick
03:56
these people out so we need to get
03:59
involved
03:59
what’s happening in the military to gay
04:02
people today let me give you an example
04:04
I want to share with you an atrocity or
04:06
some atrocities that I observed when I
04:08
was a cadet at your United States Air
04:11
Force Academy that your tax dollars pay
04:13
for when my friend found out that he was
04:16
when my friend was found out as being
04:18
gay he disappeared from his room in the
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middle of the night none of us knew
04:23
where he went
04:24
we found out later that he was detained
04:27
we don’t know where and he was too
04:30
shaken up to say where he was evaluated
04:33
mentally he was put into a mental ward
04:37
at the United States Air Force Academy
04:38
Hospital a military investigation ensued
04:43
were his entire family friends and
04:45
everyone he wasn’t out to was told that
04:47
he was gay before he was ready to say he
04:49
was gay he lost his dignity
04:53
he lost his career he lost his dreams
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would be a pilot and an Air Force
04:57
officer and a leader then he went
05:01
through court-martial he was dragged in
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front of a military tribunal and
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humiliated he’s so embarrassed today he
05:08
doesn’t even have a social skill to come
05:11
out of a house back to the numbers
05:13
cadets at your service academies West
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Point Annapolis the Air Force Academy
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now the Coast Guard Academy which has
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just been put under the Department of
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Defense it’s costing 320
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and dollars of your money to send one
05:27
cadet through four years of these
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institutions when they get kicked out
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and it’s okay to spend that kind of
05:33
money because we’re training really good
05:34
leaders that’s my opinion but when they
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get kicked out all of that money goes
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down the drain and this should make us
05:40
furious we run the military in this
05:44
country we have a unique country and a
05:47
unique military in that civilians
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ultimately make the decisions of what
05:51
our military does and what our military
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policies are that’s us and we need to
05:56
get involved that’s what I that’s what I
05:58
wrote my book about and I hope that you
06:00
all will be with me in this
06:09
mm-hmm
06:12
and here is why you can join me and here
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is why we have a chance because the
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people currently running the US Armed
06:19
Forces continue to fail miserably at
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giving any reasonable rationale for why
06:24
gays should not be allowed to serve in
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the military there’s no reasonable
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rationale and here’s their biggest
06:29
excuse they’re using the same excuses
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that we use to keep out minorities and
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women from the military years ago and
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the reason was this Oh
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if we let minorities and women into the
06:40
military we might offend the people who
06:43
are already serving who are prejudiced
06:44
against those groups and that’s the same
06:46
reason they’re using today well we have
06:48
evolved and now we do not allow people
06:50
to discriminate against women and
06:51
minorities in the military because we
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know it’s wrong why gay people are the
06:55
last group to still be discriminated in
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this way is beyond me
07:07
here’s what we’ll say is the title of my
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book because when the secret society of
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Gay Cadets
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that we had at the academy went out we
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would always have to get our lie
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straight about where we were who we were
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with and by swearing to each other
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here’s what we’ll say it was a promise
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so solemn that many of us gay cadets had
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it inscribed on the inside of our class
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rings which Lance is wearing around his
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neck of mine right now
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and now it’s the name of my book here’s
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what we’ll say I stand with you all to
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say here’s what we’ll all say to the
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government in order to end the ban on
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gays in the military so that our country
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sets an example to other militaries to
07:47
our own government our own people and
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even the world thank you so much
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This post was previously published on YouTube.
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Photo credit: Screenshot from video.