So long, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"

By a very satisfying vote of 65 to 31, the U.S. Senate voted today to repeal the 17-year-old ban on gays serving openly in the military.  I know, this paraphrasing is complicated by the fact that gay service prior to these 17 years wasn’t unfettered, either.  But the goofy torture of this benighted bill was that it acknowledged how wrong Reagan-era pursuit of purging gays from the military was, while affirming, with the presidential seal, that men and women who find enforced closeting to be demeaning and undignified are ‘correctly’ punished for exercising the ordinary privilege of laying claim to their identities.