2031
(0 votes, average 0 out of 5)
Written by Lisa Neff, Staff writer
Dec 16, 2010
White House.gov President Barack Obama meets with top military officials. – Photo: Courtesy
Senate Democrats twice this month failed to move forward with a defense spending bill that would provide for the repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy banning gays and lesbians from serving openly in the U.S. Armed Forces.
Activists say that several options remain for the repeal of the measure before a new more conservative Congress is sworn into office in January.
Activists stepped up their call on President Barack Obama to issue an order ending discharges. The president has said repeatedly that DADT is discriminatory and a threat to national security.
Additionally, U.S. Sens. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, have authored stand-alone legislation to repeal DADT.
In a statement released Dec. 9, Obama gave no indication that he planned to issue a stop-loss order halting discharges of gay servicemembers, but he did “urge the Senate to revisit” repeal “during the lame-duck session.”
Procedure interfered with efforts to press forward with repeal in the National Defense Authorization Act on Dec. 8 and again Dec. 9, when the Senate voted 57-40 to proceed with the bill, three votes shy of the 60 required.
Collins was the only Republican to vote to proceed with the legislation. Forty-two other Republicans in the chamber vowed to block any action on legislation without passage of a measure extending Bush-era tax cuts.
“With America at war in two countries, a small minority of U.S. senators has declared war on our troops,” said Rick Jacobs of the Courage Campaign, a grassroots group that has collected more than 700,000 signatures from citizens demanding DADT’s repeal.
Surveys show that about 80 percent of U.S. adults support gays serving openly in the Armed Forces.
Top Pentagon officials, on the civilian and service side, also support DADT’s repeal.
And, in the spring, the House voted for a defense spending bill that would provide for eliminating the anti-gay policy.
The Senate’s refusal to move forward with the NDAA follows committee hearings on a Pentagon assessment that found a majority of troops have little or no concern about serving with gays and lesbians.
During the hearings, John McCain, the Senate’s chief advocate of DADT and a Vietnam veteran, challenged Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
McCain said now is the time to deal with taxes and the economy, not DADT.
“I would not recommend repeal of this law if I did not believe in my soul that it was the right thing to do for our military, for our nation and for our collective honor,” Mullen said.
