[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 77 (Thursday, May 10, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1012]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       A TRIBUTE TO DIXON OSBURN

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. BARNEY FRANK

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 10, 2007

  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Madam Speaker, for 14 years, Dixon Osburn 
has been the Executive Director of the Service Members Legal Defense 
Network, an extremely effective and principled organization that has 
fought against the unfair discrimination against gay, lesbian and 
bisexual people in the U.S. armed services. It is hard to combine 
passion and common sense in a political cause--people who feel strongly 
often have an understandable difficulty in controlling their strong 
feelings to the point where they can follow the most rational 
strategies, and serving as the head of an organization exacerbates 
this, since the head of such a group is required to preach 
thoughtfulness to people who are--often justifiably--far too angry to 
want to think about things.
  Dixon Osburn as Executive Director of SLDN performed this extremely 
difficult task very, very well. No one ever doubted the depth of his 
commitment to the cause of fairness for LGBT service members, and no 
one could fault the analytical discipline he brought to the job. I 
believe that we will some day in the near future abolish this unfair 
``don't ask, don't tell'' policy, which discriminates against 
individuals and deprives our military of personnel who would perform 
useful services at a time when we need that. When we do reach that 
goal, the important work that Dixon Osburn has done over these past 14 
years will deserve a great deal of the credit.

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