“Don’t ask, don’t tell,” the 15-year-old law which prohibits anyone who “demonstrate(s) a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts” from serving in the U.S. armed forces is at death’s door. Colin Powell, who authored the policy as compromise between President Clinton and conservatives who wanted the ban on gays in the military to stand, DADT is responsible for discharging 12,600 service members in its lifetime, including 60 who are proficient Arab speakers, a skill the military remains in desperate need of. 75 percent of Americans support its repeal, and the incoming President has promised to do away with it.
With DADT on life-support how will it go? And who will pull the plug?
Scenario 1: The Obama Easy Way
In this scenario, the top brass drops their disproved arguments about unit cohesion and see the writing on the wall. The bill sails through Congress and Obama signs it into law. President-elect Barack Obama made a campaign promise to get rid of DADT, and gays and lesbians will hold him to it. His plan, as you might have guessed, is all about consensus. Obama intends to first discuss the issue with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and his own administration, then present his own legislation to Congress. In theory, it’s simple enough. But while a majority of civvies support an integrated military, 23 percent of enlisted men and women say they would consider dropping out of an integrated armed services.
Scenario 2: The Obama Hard Way
Here on planet Earth, there will be problems with the abolishment of DADT. The first is that Obama drags his feet on doing anything about the policy. It’s not as if he’s wanting for pressing issues to tackle. The Washington Times reported last month that Obama may not even broach the issue ’til next year, reporting:
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“I think 2009 is about foundation building and reaching consensus,” said Aubrey Sarvis, executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. The group supports military personnel targeted under the ban.
Mr. Sarvis told The Washington Times that he has held “informal discussions” with the Obama transition team on how the new president should proceed on the potentially explosive issue.
Lawrence Korb, an analyst at the Center for American Progress and an adviser to the Obama campaign, said the new administration should set up a Pentagon committee to make recommendations to Congress on a host of manpower issues, including the gay ban.
“If it’s part of a larger package, it has a better chance of getting passed,” he said.”
Even if Obama manages to craft a bill that satisfies military executives, that doesn’t mean it will pass Congress. If the Pentagon does not clearly and loudly signal support for integration, Republicans and moderate Democrats are unlikely to vote to repeal DADT.
Scenario 3: Congress Acts On Its Own
Say Obama drags his feet and its not too late in the term that Congress is worried about re-election. It’s then that the Military Readiness Act could come in to its own. The Service Member’s Legal Defense Fund explains the bill, saying:
“In 2007, Rep. Martin Meehan (D-MA) and a bipartisan group of 109 original cosponsors reintroduced the Military Readiness Enhancement Act in the House of Representatives. Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) is now the lead sponsor, and is joined by 144 bipartisan cosponsors and counting. SLDN is working with key allies to introduce parallel legislation in the U.S. Senate.
The Military Readiness Enhancement Act would repeal the current ban on military service by openly lesbian, gay and bisexual Americans, commonly referred to as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” It would replace the current law with new provisions prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation in the Armed Forces. Current regulations regarding the personal conduct of military members would remain unchanged as long as they are written and enforced in a sexual orientation neutral manner. Persons previously discharged for being gay would be eligible to apply to rejoin the military. The Military Readiness Enhancement Act would not create a right to benefits for same-sex partners or spouses, because under current federal law such benefits would violate the federal Defense of Marriage Act.”
If the bill passed Congress and landed on Obama’s desk, he’d have little choice but to sign it, no matter what military commanders said.
Scenario 4: The Courts Strike It Down
Essentially, this is the least likely scenario. The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled or refused to hear cases related to the policy and there’s little reason or hope they would do so now.
Scenario 5: Nothing Happens
Promises and politicians are fast friends at election time, but once in office they often part ways. In this scenario, the Service Member’s Legal Defense Fund continues to build broad consensus, but Obama doesn’t act and Congress fails to move on any bill the would repeal DADT. Would gays and lesbians continue on their same course of quiet tolerance building, or would the Prop. 8 spirit erupt on Pennsylvania Ave?
damien
It’s going to be the Obama Hard Way. The guy’s smarter than I certainly am and I think he knows that getting some of the things he’s promised in his campaign passed is going to take quite a bit of fist-fighting and ass-kissing. (For example, even if we don’t like his choice of Rick Warren speaking at his Inauguration, it’s going to make a lot of important decision-making people happy: Conservatives.) Despite all quite a few important military people – including Colin Powell – saying DADT needs to go, it’s not going to be easy. It was hard-fought (and lost) battle for Clinton to even get military and Congress to a weak compromise – getting rid of it altogether is going to be extremely tough.
Just my thoughts, but I’d love to be wrong 🙂
Nick
Maybe there will be another meteorite
kiltnc
Everyone can do their part by signing the petition:
http://www.sldn.org/
lessthan
I think that 3 and 5 are the most likely. Obama has already been doing some questionable stuff,stuff that says he is more right than left. I really don’t expect anything out of him at all.
Michael W.
@lessthan: Obama’s more right than left? LMAO!
Yes, let’s completely disregard his ultra liberal Illinois state and US Senate record and everything he’s ever spoken up for and against. Clearly, after picking Rick Warren to give his invocation and including tax cuts in his stimulus package, Obama is now a rightwinger.
Chiot Moite
I think this should be the motto of the gays:
Do Tell
Don’t Die.
Leland Frances
1. COLON Powell has NEVER said DADT needs to go. EXACTLY like his civilian partner in moral crime, Sam Nunn, he was simply floating a balloon in the direction of the O camp hoping for some plush appointment. There is NO evidence that he’s any less WILLFULLY homophobic than he was in 1993 when he LEAD the charge against integrating the military by publicly condemning the idea and privately threatening to resign as Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
2. Obama is NOT as smart as so many are still willing to ascribe to him or he’d have the COMMON SENSE to know that hard core religionists are not about to join the still priapismic “He’s the Messiah” crowd simply because he’s shamelessly pandering to them with Warrengate.
3. You emphasized the wrong statistical sy-lab-le in that “Newsweek” story.” “58 percent [of active-duty service members] said they oppose any change in the military’s policy toward gays.”
4. When is everyone going to get that gays “holding him to it” is as impotent as John Wayne Bobbitt the minute Mrs. Bobbitt cut off his dick? Yes, there are enough of us that give enough Dem-victory-dependent money that, were we to withhold it en masse, he and they would STOP merely throwing pretty words at us, but it ain’t gonna happen. Too many ballless gays to make it work.
5. Scenario 3, Congress acting on its own when his Kumbaya/Let’s Ask The Foxes What To Do About The Chickens strategy fails is the only path of hope. With one caveat: I CAN imagine him vetoing it. He’s repeatedly said he’ll put on his Commander-in-Chief Hat and Spurs if Pentagon brass asses resist withdrawing from Iraq, but repeatedly signaled that when it comes to “the gays” and his personal political career he’s more than willing to be their Butt Boy.
Obama played us when he lied about his gay rights record in Illinois. He played us on his actual position about a state’s right to deny gays ANY kind of legal recognition of our relationships. He played us in McClurkingate. He’s playing us again with Warrengate. The bully MIA from his pulpit will become DADTgate and DOMAgate.
Leland Frances
Make that “led the charge….”
seitan-on-a-stick
There’s always Peacetime!
BTW – Obama lurched to the right after barely defeating Hillary and easily dispensing with McCain. Oil drilling, atomic energy and anti-gay stances are not Liberal or Progressive causes. He will govern from the Moderate Centre by sucking the dicks of Conservatives but Don’t ASK or Don’t TELL. Hillary will surely recommend the repeal of DADT as his co-President, er, I mean Madame Secretary since her husband was backed into a corner by a Republican Congress ruled by Gingrich and using Colin Powell as the Military’s Trojan Horse of intolerance.
Remember, Captain Kool-Aid says “Obey Obama ALL the time!”
Daniel
The United States government, including our so called “allies” in Congress, set up two governments overseas that commit genocide against gay people – Iraq and Afghanistan. That same government funds these genocidal governments. The USA didn’t sign the international resolution calling for decriminalization of homosexuality because the USA — STILL CRIMINALIZES — homosexuality on every U.S. military base in the world. Sodomy is still a crime in the U.S. military which carries jail time. The gay community in the USA needs to realize that far from being one of the good guys, the U.S. government has consistently shown itself to be one of the bad guys. Most states in the USA could not even maintain a simple democracy – voters ended their constitutional democracy by ending Equal Protection under Law.
Leland Frances
You’re right to zing the US government for a number of reasons, Daniel, but Iraq and Afghanistan were murdering gays long before the US became involved in their cultures. Unlike other countries where Western so-called “Christian” influence turned tolerance of gays into persecution, such as those in Asia, the US did not make the Mideast become sexist, homophobic Islamic pigs.
Second, the status of homosexuality has NEVER been a “criminal” offense in the US military, though, yes, homosexual ACTS are.
It’s all bad enough without
HopeSpringsATurtle
There is another way not mentioned: By Executive Order.
Clinton promised to end discrimination against Gays in the military by executive order but instead we got the extremely compromised, more offensive, DADT policy. Harry Truman ended racial segregation in the military by executive order in 1948 which I believe is the best model for change in the military. The military takes orders and the highest order comes from the civilian Commander-in-Chief.
I find this scenario practically the option with the least possibility based on Obama’s desire for “consensus” but a girl can hope can’t she?
Leland Frances
Sorry, Turtle, but your Hope is based on a lack of understanding of federal law.
An Executive Order could have cancelled the ban on out gays in the military POLICY in 1993, but COLON Powell and Sam Numb Nuts conspired to pass an actual law that bans gays thus blocking Clinton from eliminating it with one pen stroke, and, they well knew, any future President.
There is a school of thought that says O could try to kill DADT with a “signing statement.” This is a very powerful tactic that few in the public are even aware of, even tho Presidents have used them all the way back to Monroe. Reagan, Clinton, and Bush fils each issued hundreds.
Essentially, it comes down to a President, upon signing a bill passed by Congress, which is required for it to become law, can issue a statement saying that he won’t abide by it, or all of it, if he doesn’t want to. I kid you not.
Bush fils has repeatedly defended it by saying that some bills violate his discretionary options as President. Therefore, O could, for instance, when the next military funding bill hits his desk, sign it but say that, at the same time, he IS issuing an Executive Order in his role as Commander-in-Chief to kill DADT which, among many other things, that funding would otherwise be used to implement. It’s a stretch, but some think he could do it. But, of course, he won’t even try because, as he’s repeatedly shown, when it comes to choosing between Amurkins [sic] liking him and The Gays he’ll dry fuck us everytime.
More about signing statements at:
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/signingstatements.php
Zac
As someone who served under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” it is sad that no one wants to take serious leadership on this issue. Obama should issue an executive order resinding the policy and replacing it with a policy of non-discrimination. It’s really that simple, gay men and women already serve in our ranks some openly, some not. Let’s allow them to be worried about there doing there jobs effectively not worried about who finds out who they are sleeping with.
The Armed Forces is a fluid lifestyle and does what it is told to do. The military will not fall apart, nor will parents stop sending there children to serve. Soliders will still re-enlist and all while stopping this idoitoic policy of discharging folks because they are gay.
Jeremy King
I do understand the rationale for the law, because in the military all those of the same sex are in close quarters, especially in the navy, where 2 officers share a room on board. However even if you weren’t officially out, your colleagues would either have known or pretty much guessed, so the argument about not wanting to diminish morale seems a hard sell.
But honestly work is work, your own personal life is yours and yours only, why do you have to tell anyone else other than your loved ones? Furthermore it’s not like you will be in the unit for life.
If they don’t want gays in the military, then they shouldn’t have women in it either.
Soulmentor
The one thing that would work and shock the nation into reality would be if every gay and lesbian service person resigned, or as an alternative, came out en masse. The military would damn near collapse and that would be the end of the controversy. Why doesn’t SMLDF consider organizing such an event. It would be easy to reach all military personnel with the internet and set a date for it to happen, in the interim, doing everything possible to encourage military wide compliance. It would all be perfectly legal. No one could be prosecuted for anything and the military wouldn’t dare discharge tens of thousands en masse, especially those in critical health and computer areas of expertise.
Yeah, it would take a lot of courage among the gay military personnel, but I can’t see the military and civilian powers that be calling the bluff. For one thing, too many upper echelon officers would be among lost to the military.
I guess it’s actually not very realistic but it’s fun to think about and it really would work if it could be done.
Soulmentor
@HopeSpringsATurtle: Oh please, if you’re gonna talk like that last sentence there IS no hope. Unless you really are a girl, shut the fuck up with that flip fag crap. All you do is feed into the stereotype, you silly fool. Get a grip on the political reality and stop being a political liability.
Soulmentor
BTW, I know something about this issue. I’m an Air Force vet myself with two military officer sons, one Marine and one Coast Guard with whom I’ve had extensive thoughtful conversations on this issue. They agree DADT is absurd, but they do understand the complications and that a resolution satisfactory to us will not come easy.
Sgt. bracken US Army
First of all, this is a touchy subject for many Americans. I think this bill should be left alone. I know a lot of men and women out that are in the dessert right now that are homosexual. The way I think about it is if you are mentally and phyically strong and you dont show a sign or act homosexual. Then what is the problem. Many soldiers are getting in trouble, because there flapping there gums to other soldiers about there homosexual lifestyle. But I will say this thos men out there are a hell of a lot stronger to be serving our country and standing up to what they believe in to make all the Americans safe, Thats curage. I would rather have the men and women in my unit, homosexual or not protecting my ass rather than some idiot that screws up everything and almost gets us killed.
*THINK ABOUT WHAT DON’T ASK DON’T TELL MEANS LOOK IT UP!!!!
*Don’t ask about it
*Don’t Tell about it