| Senator Susan Collins's Address to Log Cabin Republicans Spirit of Lincoln Awards Dinner
September 20, 2011
Thank you, Clarke. Thank you, Log Cabin, for advancing for our party’s core values of limited government, a strong national defense, and the value that brings us together tonight – individual liberty. This day – September 20th, 2011, will long be remembered as the day those values moved our nation forward. I am delighted to see that one of my former interns and a fellow Mainer, Christian Berle, is working as Log Cabin’s Deputy Executive Director. It is a pleasure to share this evening with such dedicated Congressional advocates for equality. I am proud to work alongside my friend and colleague Senator Brown, Congressman Hanna, and Congresswoman Hayworth, and congratulate them for this recognition. They exemplify the “Spirit of Lincoln.” To receive an award in the name of Abraham Lincoln is an honor. To be equated with his leadership, his character, and his principles is humbling. Another great thing about being compared to him in any way is that his genius for putting those qualities into words gives me many wonderful quotes on which to build my remarks. His wisdom and eloquence gives any speaker a great head start. The better angels of our nature, the last best hope on earth, with malice toward none – those are powerful words that provide true insight into Abraham Lincoln’s faith in humanity and the promise of America. Our fight to repeal DADT was strengthened by that faith and inspired by those powerful words. But Lincoln the matchless orator had an alter ego – the self-taught son of the log cabin, the simple country lawyer. That Lincoln gave us many down-to-earth observations that also describe our cause, our fight, and our victory. He said: “I walk slowly, but I never walk backward.” We persevered. “I don't like that man so I must get to know him better.” We defeated baseless prejudice with open-mindedness. “You cannot fool all the people all the time.” In the case of DADT repeal, the American people were not fooled by scare tactics that contradicted their real-world experiences in their communities, their workplaces, and their homes. Here’s one that fits perfectly: “The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly.” Or, as Lincoln put it to an especially rustic audience, “What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself. “ DADT was a bad law that became more odious with every application. It caused our military to deny enlistment to thousands of patriotic Americans, who wanted to serve their country, and to discharge service members whose talents and skills were desperately needed. I’ll take a few minutes to give you my perspective of the fight to overturn DADT. First, let me provide a little background. My commitment to repeal was based on my personal convictions and bolstered by my experience on the Senate Homeland Security and Armed Services Committees. In these perilous times, our nation cannot afford to discard patriots who want to defend us. At no time should our nation discriminate on such a basis. If individuals are willing to put on the uniform of our country, to be deployed in war zones like Iraq and Afghanistan, to risk their lives for the benefit of their fellow citizens, then we should be expressing our gratitude to them, not trying to exclude them from serving or expelling them from the military. It certainly was high time that we learned from the 28 other nations, including some of our most valued allies, that welcome the military service of all qualified persons. Since 1993, more than 13,000 men and women have been dismissed from service and countless more have been barred from serving. Society had changed a great deal since President Clinton signed the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell law. I agreed with Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that this law should be carefully repealed. About four years ago, in 2007, I first asked Admiral Mullen in his confirmation hearing about the DADT policy. That was the first, but not the last, time that Admiral Mullen courageously testified in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee about the need to evaluate the DADT policy. My support for repeal was strengthened by an informed voice from my home state of Maine. Also in 2007, I received a thought-provoking letter from retired Admiral Chick Rauch, who lives in a small town near Bangor. He was the first military leader to share his own experience and to urge me to repeal this law. During three decades in the U.S. Navy, he served with gay and lesbian personnel at sea and on shore -- they were hardworking, bright, capable and loyal sailors and officers who were well-respected by their shipmates. He urged me to work to repeal the law. I agreed with Admiral Rauch that it was simply wrong to prevent fine, well-educated and skilled citizens from realizing their desire to serve their country. To force them to live a lie, as DADT required, was just wrong. The initial strategy to repeal DADT was to include it in the annual defense policy bill. It had been 48 years since that annual bill failed to become law. But at the rate we were going late last year, it looked like that bill would never become law. Last May, the Armed Services Committee debated the repeal of DADT behind closed doors. It was frustrating to me that opponents of repeal were not willing to have the debate in front of the public. Many opponents of repeal pulled out all the stops to try to derail repeal efforts – including asking all four service chiefs to sign a letter urging Congress to wait until after a report was accomplished. But when the report was completed and the debate to act on DADT was made public, there was no doubt that efforts to repeal DADT were gaining momentum. At the Committee hearing on the DOD Report on implementing repeal, I cited a service member who we believe is a Navy SEAL. He said this: “We have a gay guy in the unit. He’s big, he’s mean, and he kills lots of bad guys. No one cared that he was gay.” This quote was buried within the DOD Report on DADT, but it reflects, in my view, how most service members felt about DADT repeal. In early December, the defense bill had passed the House and included repeal of DADT. It was difficult to find a path forward in the Senate to allow amendments. Lost in the public debate over DADT was the fact that the underlying Defense bill is among the most crucial pieces of legislation Congress considers. It provides $726 billion for our nation’s defense, including operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. It sets personnel levels for the branches of service, improves health care for our wounded warriors, modernizes military facilities, and supports the defense industries that are so vital to our economy. Given the crucial importance of that bill to our national security, it was entirely reasonable that both parties should have had the opportunity to offer amendments and engage in full debate. In the second week of December, however, the Majority Leader walked away from negotiations to bring the Defense Policy bill to the floor and called for a premature vote, knowing that it would fail. I voted to proceed, but many of my colleagues had legitimate objections. I was truly outraged. I was in my office, and I rushed to the floor to ask the Majority Leader why he was walking away from the negotiations. We had a back and forth but, unfortunately, he pushed forward with an immediate vote. Predictably, the Senate failed to proceed to the defense policy bill. The bill failed because the opportunity was denied to offer amendments. That vote made apparent that we needed another route to pass the repeal of DADT, and Senator Lieberman and I decided right there on the Senate floor to introduce a stand-alone measure to pass the repeal of DADT. We wrote the bill the same day. For the next 10 days, Senator Lieberman and I worked to keep repeal alive through our bill, even as the clock on the 111th Congress ran down. Many people thought ours was an impossible task. We just kept trying to figure out how we could accomplish it because we felt so strongly that is was the right thing to do. We built a strong coalition on both sides of the aisle, convincing colleagues that, all other issues aside, we must end an archaic and discriminatory policy. On December 20th, our legislation passed by a vote of 65 to 31. I was proud to have brought along seven of my Republican colleagues in support of this repeal. History was made two days later when it was signed into law by President Obama. I want to thank the LGBT community for the outpouring of support during that time and since that great day. I first signed on to Hate Crimes legislation over a dozen years ago, and was happy to be one of the lead Republicans when that bill became law in 2009. In the past decade I’ve sponsored or cosponsored a number of LGBT bills including ENDA, The Domestic Partner Benefits and Obligations Act, The Tax Parity for Health Plan Beneficiaries Act, and the Early Treatment for HIV Act. Whenever I have occasion to reflect on the life and words of Abraham Lincoln, I am drawn to his great “House Divided” speech. He saw then, as we see today, that a nation divided by baseless discrimination cannot endure. He did not expect our nation to fall. Rather, he expected it would cease to be divided. So did we. He concluded that amazing speech with these words: “We shall not fail – if we stand firm, we shall not fail.” I thank you all for standing firm. Because of you, we did not fail. |
