Dear Mr. President:

With all due respect Sir, you have not walked a mile in my shoes, nor have I walked a mile in yours.  But, I do believe we both would agree ALL Americans deserve the same respect and opportunities this nation has to offer.  That is why I am writing you today to ask you to repeal the "Don't Ask; Don't Tell" policy.

As a black man, would you ever consider hiding the color of your skin in order to have the same opportunities as a white man?  NO? So why, why would a nation, a nation that prides itself on equality and equal opportunities, ask a segment of its people to hide who they are in order to benefit from the same opportunities?  I can think of only one driving force behind this type of discrimination and it's called "Fear".  Back in 1948 this type fear was met head on by President Truman when he issued an executive order to end racial desegregation in the military.  Now the time has come for you as President to meet the same fear head on with an executive order to end the "Don't ask: Don't tell" policy.

For over twenty years as homosexual men severing in this Nations military my partner and I have lived in fear.  Fear that all we have worked for, all we have achieved could be taken away from us at a moment's notice.  To ask someone to hide who they are is worse than to discriminate based on the color of the skin.  My mother told me stories of the culture shook she experienced in the 1940ies when she moved to St. Louis after marrying my father.  As a city girl growing up in Detroit, she was not accustomed to black people moving off the sidewalk as she walked by, nor having to sit in the front of the Bus. On one such experience, she sat in the back of a city bus, at the next stop everyone black and white got off.  Even with such segregation the black man was never asked to hide who he was.  He could walk on the sidewalks openly and take the bus openly as a black man and not as a black man pretending to be white.  So why, why does this great nation ask that of me?

Today, I ask you to end that cycle of fear.  I ask that you, the president of this great nation, give respect dignity and equal opportunity to all the people you serve.  Repeal the "Don't Ask; Don't Tell" policy.

Sincerely,