It looks like DADT will finally be repealed. It was a bad law, a compromise to prevent something worse. I’ll remain skeptical until it is dead and buried and gays and lesbians are serving openly in our military.
But lets not get too excited. When Truman desegregated the military it didn’t end segregation in the rest of the nation, and it also meant that young black men could be used as cannon fodder in the jungles of Vietnam.
Despite what Rachel Maddow and others might think, Obama didn’t cover himself in glory on this issue. He fought court challenges against DADT and when he lost he appealed. Even now the White House won’t commit to ending discharges of gay and lesbians:
Saying that they had been “focused” on the vote, a senior White House aide intimately familiar with the administration’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal efforts was unwilling to say whether President Obama agrees with Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) that DADT-releated investigations and discharges should be halted immediately.
But even if gays and lesbians can now serve openly they still can’t get married.
DADT only affects a minority of the LGBT community. Repealing DOMA and legalizing gay marriage affects all of them.
BTW – What is to stop another Congress and POTUS from reinstituting the ban on gays in the military?
The court ruling that is under appeal said that DADT was unconstitutional. The repeal of DADT doesn’t affect it’s constitutionality.
Filed under: DADT, DOMA, gay marriage, General, LGBT rights | Tagged: DADT, DOMA, gay marriage |
The Confluence 
Chron:
It ain’t over ’til it’s over
I hope the court cases keep going through and settle the constitutional issue. Would repealing DADT stop those court cases? That would be a problem because like you said, another POTUS could just reinstate it.
I’ll have to think about it – normally it would moot the cause of action, thus invoking the “case or controversy” rule.
But then the original ruling is still on the books so if new similar legislation is passed it would be operative.
Hilarious.
Even when he delivers on the campaign promise, you still won’t concede him any credit.
It’s proof that your positions are completely unreasonable.
Yes We Can (end the policy started by the Clintons).
Ha ha.
Exactly how did “he” deliver on a campaign promise?
The repeal of DADT happened in spite of Obama.
I’ll say again. He sounds fourteen.
He sounds like a new parent praising the baby for pooping in his pampers.
“Him is sooo good!”
He’d need the teleprompter to do that.
Incorrect. Even those pressing Obama the most on the issue now give him credit:
“Gay, lesbian and bisexual service members posted around the world are standing a little taller today, but they’re still very much at risk because repeal is not final. I respectfully ask Defense Secretary Robert Gates to use his authority to suspend all ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ investigations during this interim period. Until the President signs the bill, until there is certification, and until the 60-day Congressional period is over, no one should be investigated or discharged under this discriminatory law. Even with this historic vote, service members must continue to serve in silence until repeal is final. Certification and the 60-day Congressional requirement must be wrapped up no later than the first quarter of 2011. The bottom line: for now, gay, lesbian, and bisexual service members must remain cautiously closeted,” said Aubrey Sarvis, Army veteran and executive director for Servicemembers Legal Defense Network.
http://www.sldn.org/news/archives/breaking-sldn-statement-on-u.s.-senate-vote-to-allow-for-the-repeal-of-dont/
Even better, Obama wins re-election right now under all scenarios . . . and this is his supposed low point:
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/133929-poll-obama-bests-potential-gop-challengers-in-2012
Name call all you’d like.
I guess I’ll be a 12 year old (14 at the time of the next election, to be exact), but I’ll be a 14 year old living under a 2nd Obama term in all likelihood.
And I’ll still be smiling.
Two female SC justices, HCR, repealed DADT, Lilly Ledbetter, stimulus, finance reform, student loan reform, more female cabinet members than any other POTUS.
And Hillary is his SOS.
You can’t win any harder than that.
Idiot!! Like a babe in the woods you don’t understand that the DEVIL IS IN THE DETAILS. So DADT is repealed, and the question is — it’s replaced with what? At this point there is no proscribed action for anything but to go back to the original situation before Clinton won a compromise with DADT so that enlistees wouldn’t be forced to lie about their sexuality when they were legally forced to answer the question “Are you a homosexual?” Now there is NO protection for gays until the policy is implemented by the military.
Everyone is caught up in the fervor of the repeal. But it reminds me of the end of “The Graduate” when after fleeing the hell of their parents and social pressures the kids are looking at one another in the back of the bus wondering what the hell they are going to do next.
WTF?
I really don’t remember spending that much time in the shower when I was in the army and I’m not so vain to think that any gay guys that were there would have been ogling me anyway.
Do the stalls have doors?
stalls?
I worked with a guy who had fought in Korea. I once asked him what his most vivid memory of it was. He said it was the fact that he went over a year without being able to shower or bathe except out of his helmet. They weren’t worrying about sexual orientation.
Yes, but you are more mature than the average fundigelical. I don’t think my uncles in WW11 worried about gays – they were more concerned with keeping alive and doing their best to bring the war to an end. Gays have a long history of being in the military – Alexander the Great was one, and he is acknowledged as being one of the greatest military strategists ever. I doubt that the repeal of DADT will ever happen, although there will be a lot of sturm und drang in every election cycle about it. What is the alternative – the return of the draft?
I meant that I doubt that the repeal of the repeal of DADT – or in simpler terms the reintroduction of DADT. Sorry for the misspeak.
I think if the repeal goes through then it’s probably around to stay. I just think we’re all counting our chickens here.
btw, there was plenty of non-black cannon fodder in ‘Nam.
In Viet Nam, every grunt regardless of colour or sexial orientation or gender was cannon fodder, and look at how well that campaign turned out. It will be the same in Af-Pak. 9 years and counting to achieve….what?