BY Aliyah Shahid
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Talk about awkward.
Sen. John McCain's wife is speaking out against the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy in an anti-bullying campaign, posing a sharp contrast to her husband's efforts to keep the anti-gay ban in place.
"Our political and religious leaders tell LGBT youth that they have no future," Cindy McCain says in the ad made by the gay rights campaign NOH8. The group was started after the passage of Proposition 8, the measure that prohibits same sex-marriage, passed in California.
"They can't serve our country openly," she adds in the video, which features celebrities like Denise Richards, Gene Simmons and Dave Navarro.
In a series of cut-away clips, the stars highlight the disproportionately high rate of attempted suicides among gay youth and link the deaths and bullying to anti-gay legislation.
The ad comes out just before the Pentagon is set to release a study that found having gays serve openly in the military would result in few risks to America's war effort.
[Read more about national security and the military.]
Meanwhile, the GOP senator and Vietnam veteran has led the opposition to repeal the military's ban against openly gay military personnel. McCain even promised in October to filibuster any measure put forth in the Senate aiming to repeal DADT.
His wife thinks differently.
"Our government treats the LGBT community like second class citizens, why shouldn't they?" Cindy McCain asks rhetorically.
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