Posted on 11/17/2010 9:32:53 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
President Barack Obama and senior White House officials urged top lawmakers to pass a measure this year that would allow gay men and women to serve openly in the US military.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the Senate would vote on a measure to end the Pentagon's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy after the Thanksgiving holiday break.
"Our Defense Department supports repealing 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' as a way to build our all-volunteer armed forces," Reid said in a statement. "We need to repeal this discriminatory policy so that any American who wants to defend our country can do so."
Obama has pledged to do away with the policy, adopted in 1993, but big gains by Republicans in the November 2 elections have raised doubts about ending the ban once the new Congress takes power in January.
A measure to end the ban cleared the House of Representatives but stalled in the Senate.
A White House spokesman said Obama called Democratic Senator Carl Levin, chairman of a Senate committee on armed services, to reiterate his support for the measure being passed by the outgoing Congress before the end of the year.
"The president's call follows the outreach over the past week by the White House to dozens of senators from both sides of the aisle on this issue," the spokesman said.
White House officials also met with Reid's staff to to press the issue, he said.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said this month he hoped the outgoing Congress would approve legislation ending the ban on gays but was unsure of the prospects for success.
Without action by Congress before the end of the year, it could become difficult for Obama to get lawmakers to repeal the policy in 2011 because Republicans, most of whom oppose lifting the ban, will control the House.
The Log Cabin Republicans, a national gay and lesbian advocacy group, won a lower court ruling in October that barred the Pentagon from enforcing the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy but an appeals court put the decision on hold. The US Supreme Court later rejected a request to lift the appeals court stay.
You bring up good points, but defending against homosexual advances will be a loser for good, normal fighting men. The sodomites always bring up accusations of “gay panic,” the contrived charge of over-reaction of normal (I refuse to say ‘straight’) people to “perceived” homo-aggression. And the courts and commissions almost always buy this line without question.
I agree with your refusal to say "straight" instead of "normal".
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If the slime in Congress pass this abomination can the Repubs undo in January? The idea of flaming homosexuals in the military is so repulsive and disgusting and horrible and destructive that it's hard to imagine it could really happen. DADT is more than bad enough; it should be repealed and revert back to "no homosexuals at all, whatsoever, of any sort etc".
“The Pink Swastika is a powerful exposure of pre-World War II Germany and its quest for reviving and imitating a Hellenistic-paganistic idea of homo-eroticism and militarism.”
Dr. Mordechai Nisan, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Just because a person wants to serve their country does not mean they should be able to do so! Those with psychiatric disorders can’t serve.People who are bipolar cannot join the military.I guess we are being discriminated against as well.What a jackass.
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