“Deal” Reached on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
posted by Darren Hutchinson
President Obama has experienced conflict with some LGBT rights advocates who contend that he has moved sluggishly on the issue of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. DADT requires the discharge of known “homosexuals” from the military.
During his presidential campaign, Obama promised to repeal the ban, and since his election, social movement organizations have pushed him on this issue. In order to appease liberal advocates of LGBT rights, President Obama first promised that he would start looking into the issue of lifting the ban last year. Earlier this year, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced a formal “study” of the impact of lifting the ban. The results of the study are due in December.
Representative Patrick Murphy and Senator Lieberman, however, introduced bills to repeal DADT. These bills conflict with the Obama’s “measured” approach. Yesterday, several media outlets reported that Obama reached a compromise with Murphy, Lieberman and LGBT rights organizations. Under the deal, Murphy and Lieberman would amend their bills to provide that DADT would remain the law until such time that the Defense Department completes its review, determines that a repeal of DADT will not impact military readiness or recruitment, and promulgates regulations on the issue.
This deal seems gradually to shift discretion of this issue of service by gays and lesbians to the Defense Department. Media, however, have already begun reporting that Congress is poised to repeal DADT, which implies that the repeal will take place immediately and that the Defense Department must accept gay and lesbian service members on nondiscriminatory terms. This, however, is not true.
The politics behind this deal provide something for all of the major players. Despite the fact that their bills will not immediately repeal DADT, Murphy and Lieberman can get points from liberal Democratic voters ahead of the midterm elections (Lieberman probably needs this more than Patrick). Because the proposal would delay the repeal, however, no tangible change regarding DADT will occur until December at the earliest. This could allow moderates to support the measure as well. Obama’s slower path remains remains intact, but he gets to tell progressives that he has moved forward on this campaign promise. Finally, mainstream social movement organizations can celebrate the fruits of their advocacy and promote the results (however moderate) as a mobilization strategy.
May 25, 2010 at 10:39 am
Tags: don't ask don't tell, gay rights, lgbt rights, president obama, representative patrick murphy, senator lieberman
Posted in: Uncategorized
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Responses (5)
Brett Bellmore - May 25, 2010 at 4:20 pm
What a remarkable effort at damage control! The facts described above sound more like Obama is doing all he can to drag out repeal of DADT as much as possible without actually coming out and telling his ‘gay’ supporters to take a hike. Given that Obama depends much more on the black vote than the ‘gay’ vote, and the black vote is remarkably homophobic, is this any surprise?
Next you’ll paint the guy as a champion of same sex marriage…
Darren Hutchinson - May 25, 2010 at 5:57 pm
Brett: I advise you to read this post again with an open eye.
First, I am black, gay and an advocate of LGBT rights. So even if one were to accept your anecdotal description of blacks, it does not apply to me.
Second (and more importantly), I have criticized the Obama administration’s stance on gay rights (including DADT and same-sex marriage) both on my blog (Dissenting Justice) and in my scholarship.
Finally (and most importantly), this essay was not meant to do damage control for the White House. Instead, it describes the politics behind the deal.
Brett Bellmore - May 25, 2010 at 6:20 pm
It describes an implausibly exculpatory version of the politics behind the deal, anyway…
Darren Hutchinson - May 25, 2010 at 7:53 pm
Brett: Could you be more specific? Your interpretation is certainly not what I intended (or wrote).
Who Benefits from Deal on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell? | theConstitutional.org - May 29, 2010 at 11:56 pm
[...] Update: I have also blogged on this issue for Concurring Opinions. [...]
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