Don't ask, don't tell

Yeah, something like that.

yeah and definitely i mean very hard history but very much on everyone's i think americans minds for sure even in 2015 we're still very aware of this we're still technically involved we've been told we've been we would pull out of afghanistan many many times um and they had tried and i think it was really cool to kind of have maria be a vet especially because this is i think one of the first big military campaigns where women were actively allowed to be involved um We're even going to see the removal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell during this.

But she's still given a lot of the common issues that veterans have where they just kind of dropped back into society where they were deployed for however long and maybe there's a little debrief, but she was just kind of dropped back in.

She clearly had PTSD.

And how that started for me, I was gay in the military for years.

I was gay before Don't Ask, Don't Tell, during Don't Ask, Don't Tell, after Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

But when Don't Ask, Don't Tell was first repealed, people were afraid that it was going to come back.

And so people were afraid that it was going to get ripped from under our feet and anything that we shared was going to get us kicked out of the military the next day.

So we were still really scared, but I decided I had enough ring.

And so back in the day when I was, you know, doing my Republican stuff and also my freedom to marry.

work and Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Susan Collins was the constant ally on those things in a way that was really meaningful to me.

And so she bought me just a ton of loyalty.

And so even in 2020, when I was doing a lot of advocacy work to defeat Trump, I had a campaign called Republican Voters Against Trump.

But if you think about it, if you're a gay man and you're an out gay man, to know that this senator was doing something according to them in his private life and then publicly voting against legislation that would protect your rights as an lbg2t um i never can say this lgbtq plus member that would be maybe motivation to say yes that's what i would think because when you have graham who yes was a vocal opponent of same-sex marriage um He opposed adding the definition of hate crimes to include sexual orientation, gender identity.

He also voted against repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

So yes, when you have that man who publicly voted against your rights as a gay individual, you might feel motivated to tell the world who he actually was.

That's