Thank You from Aubrey Sarvis
During this special Thanksgiving week I want to take time out to say, on behalf of the entire SLDN staff, how very grateful we are for your continued support and confidence in our work. We are here every day, and have been here for 18 years, to serve and represent a special group of patriotic clients who serve under the discriminatory DADT law every day.
We are able to assist them when they call or email because of your support and wonderful generosity. SLDN is the only place many of these young service members can turn to for quality legal assistance and advice. As some of you know, the majority of our clients are between 18 and 25 years old.
We are also here to aggressively advocate for the repeal of this unfair law. We take your repeal message up to Capitol Hill, inside the White House, along the corridors of the Pentagon, and all across the country, from Montana to Texas, from Denver to Indiana, Ohio, and West Virginia, from Maine to Virginia, and wherever else we need to be and can afford to go.
Next week we will be back on Capitol Hill working to figure out where we get our best shot at repeal in the lame-duck session in the Senate. We have not given up, and we urge each one of you to lobby with us these next two weeks. Clearly the clock is working against us. But keep on fighting and keep lobbying your senators.
This week it’s about pausing to express our thanks to you. The SLDN staff is humbled and deeply grateful for your generosity and vote of confidence. In behalf of the over 10,000 service members who have reached out to us for help, we simply say -- thank you.
Without you we could not answer their calls.
11-25-10 By By Aubrey Sarvis, SLDN Executive Director |
7 Comments
Comments for this entry are closed.Dino in Washington, DC on November 28, 2010 at 04.24 pm
Thank YOU Aubrey!!!! You are a great leader and SLDN has done a great job. Hopefully very soon you will see all your hard work come to fruition.
Just Doing My Job in in Iraq on November 27, 2010 at 10.55 pm
A friend of mine deployed at the same time as me this holiday season sent a quick note. I believe it is a Thank You to SLDN and those fighting for him; thought I would share:
“I wanted to send a really quick note to thank you all for your efforts over the past year. In a week, I go up for [promotion] and DADT gets debated on the Senate floor. In both cases, people that have no idea of who I am will attempt to determine my fate. Regardless of outcome, we have all done our best and I’m thankful for that.”
John Mokricky in San Francisco on November 27, 2010 at 03.28 pm
Aubrey—Thank you and your staff for all the work you have done in an effort to repeal DADT. I was a gay man in the Navy from 1959 to 1963. Thank you!
Bill on November 26, 2010 at 04.34 pm
Aubrey—
It’s impossible to thank you and your team enough. You have prestige and influence far beyond your budget and numbers.
I just hope that your final push the next couple of weeks, helped by the LGBT community and friends, will finally rid the U.S. of DADT. The key, of course, is that the President must help your final push. He has nothing to lose except his escalating reputation for not being a tough enough leader.
Once DADT is gone, I suspect all of you will still be very busy. Homophobia is not going away ever (I think it is bad, but basic to human nature—mainly from universal male anxieties about masculinity). At least, however, you will be working beyond past criminalization of sexual variations in one of our most basic institutions, the military.
Andy Smith in Laguna Niguel, CA on November 25, 2010 at 11.16 pm
Aubrey, I am also thinking of you and the entire SLDN staff this Thanksgiving. SLDN continues to do an outstanding job in fighting this unfair law. Although the odds are against us in the short term, the work you are doing is changing public opinion and laying the groundwork for future repeal.
All the best to you for a happy holiday season!
Marine Officer in Japan on November 25, 2010 at 10.28 pm
Thank you Aubrey and SLDN for being our voice. We will keep our fingers crossed these next few weeks and never give up hope.
Still Serving on November 25, 2010 at 01.53 pm
Thank you Aubrey and the entire SLDN team. Thank you for giving us a voice when we can’t speak for ourselves.