At the OutServe-SLDN National Dinner Saturday night attended by nearly 1000 service members, veterans & supporters, Allyson Robinson, OutServe-SLDN Executive Director stated in her first State of LGBT Military Equality Address, “The fight for full LGBT equality in our armed forces is far from over. In fact, it's just getting started. LGBT troops still lack even the most basic nondiscrimination protections – protections that have been the standard with other American employers for years. The Defense of Marriage Act still denies LGBT military families the most important support services – things like health insurance & survivor benefits. Qualified Americans who are transgender & who want to serve in uniform are still forbidden from doing so by medical regulations that have become ridiculously obsolete. And despite the repeal of ‘Don't Ask, Don't Tell’, thousands of our troops are still in the closet, afraid of what coming out might mean for their careers & their families.” Robinson set a goal for reaching 14,000 actively serving members by the end of 2014, which is the number of every gay & lesbian service member kicked out of the military under “Don't Ask, Don't Tell.” The 2013 OutServe-SLDN National Dinner also featured appearances by former Congressman Patrick Murphy (D-PA); reality television stars & winners of CBS’s "The Amazing Race," Josh Kilmer-Purcell & his partner Brent Ridge (The Fabulous Beekman Boys); New York stage sensations, The Broadway Boys; Washington Post opinion writer and MSNBC contributor Jonathan Capehart; Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson; & the first lesbian couple to wed in the West Point Cadet Chapel, Sue Fulton & Penelope Gnesin.
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