Posted on 11/25/2008 12:44:04 PM PST by pissant
A member of Barack Obama’s transition team is denying media reports that the president-elect has decided to delay efforts to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” until 2010.
An Obama transition team spokesperson, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the decision on how to approach repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” which prohibits gays from serving openly in the military, would be made after more experts have joined the Obama administration.
“These decisions will not be made before the full national security team is in place,” the spokesperson said.
The Washington Times reported last week that two people who have advised Obama’s transition team said the president-elect “will not move for months, and perhaps not until 2010” to repeal the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law, which Congress passed in 1993.
Ending the ban was one of Obama’s campaign promises, although he said before his election that he would get the military on board with eliminating the law before taking action.
The Times article also quotes Aubrey Sarvis, executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, saying that he thinks 2009 “is about foundation building and reaching consensus” and that he has held “informal discussions” with the Obama transition team on how the administration should proceed with the issue.
Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who is gay, also said repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” may be further off and told the Blade earlier this month that “once Iraq is over,” Congress can eliminate the law.
But not everyone familiar with the issue has said that repealing the ban on open service would come later rather than sooner. Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.), the lead sponsor of legislation that would repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” told CNN earlier this month that the administration would approve of such a bill next year.
“The key here is to get bills that pass the House and the Senate, that we can get to President-elect Obama to sign, and I think that we can do that, certainly, the first year of the administration,” she said.
Retired Army Col. Stewart Bornhoft, who is gay and a former commander in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said changing the law would require both “passion and preparation.”
“Clearly, the passion for change is there,” he said. “But it requires proper preparation for the [Defense Department] to declare that they can implement open service successfully.”
However, Bornhoft said repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” should be attainable in the next Congress.
“Whether that’s the first or second half of that period should be determined by the progress within the Pentagon’s thinking rather than an arbitrary calendar date,” he said.
Heather Sarver, a lesbian and former Russian linguist for the Air Force who was discharged under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in 2003, said she understands “the need to build support” for legislation repealing the law, but said “everyone who cares about this issue should hold specific members of Congress accountable for their support of the bill.”
“What I fear is that Democrats have stated that they support repealing [the ban] in order to appease their gay constituents and to say they support gay issues without being in support of gay marriage,” she said. “If they are sincere, then they will schedule meetings with other members of Congress and garner their support for repeal.”
Sarver said if lawmakers do not work on building support, their opposition to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in the election will be seen as “nothing more than a political chess move.”
A Washington Post poll this summer found that 75 percent of Americans support allowing gays to serve openly, compared to 45 percent in 1993.
Activists commend Daschle nomination
Meanwhile, AIDS activists praised Obama’s nomination of Tom Daschle as health and human services secretary, and predicted Daschle’s appointment would ramp up efforts in combating the HIV epidemic.
The activists pointed to how Daschle, a former U.S. senator from South Dakota and Democratic leader in the U.S. Senate, voted in favor of bills aimed at confronting the spread of HIV through legislation that set up the D.C. needle exchange program.
Daschle also was a national co-chair of ONE Vote ’08, a non-partisan campaign that aimed to make global health issues more prominent in the 2008 election, including the international AIDS epidemic.
Carl Schmid, director of federal affairs for the AIDS Institute, noted that Daschle comes from a state that has a low incidence of HIV infections, but said the former senator “has always been very supportive of the issues” relating to HIV and gay rights.
Daschle would have an “extremely important” role in confronting the HIV epidemic, Schmid said, because the health and human services secretary oversees agencies relevant to the issue, including the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, the Food & Drug Administration, Medicare and Medicaid.
Schmid, who’s gay, said he was still waiting to hear about other appointees who will play key roles in confronting the HIV epidemic, such as undersecretaries who would serve under Daschle, the surgeon general and the AIDS czar.
“Hopefully those people will have direct experience in some communities that are highly impacted with the AIDS epidemic,” he said.
Sean Strub, an HIV-positive gay man and founder of POZ magazine, said Daschle’s record on AIDS “is excellent” and he commended the former senator’s “support of science-based HIV prevention strategies and his interest in empowering and incorporating the consumer’s voice into the healthcare decision-making processes.”
“Daschle’s appointment brings a respect for science, as well as common sense, back to a cabinet office that has in recent years been hijacked by religious ideologues who use healthcare policy as a weapon against their adversaries,” he said.
Strub said Daschle is interested in what people with HIV have to say about the epidemic “not because it is politically strategic but because he knows that no long-term solutions can be found until and unless we are participants in the process.”
Daschle’s experience in the Senate, Strub said, makes him “perfect for actually getting a healthcare plan through Congress.” He added that health care “is the single most important issue for people with HIV.”
Daschle’s office did not respond this week to the Blade’s repeated requests for comment.
He's the black Bush!
Just wait for the first gay marriages in base chapels, when Major Biff marries Captain Bruce.
Reception and dance to follow at the Officer’s Club.
After the honeymoon, the gay newlyweds will be moving into Officer Housing, next door. With their adopted children.
This is coming, and more.
What a narcissistic bunch of pukes.
Not if we fight this marxist quisling every step of the way. Starting with getting him disqualified.
:-)
Beat me to it
Man, this is gonna’ p.o. Clinton. DADT was his baby after Sam Nunn and some decent democrats let him know he would not allow open gays in the military. I’m hard pressed to find any decent democrats these days.
If they do allow and sanction open homosexuals in the military then some enterprising young military person is going to be a rich person. In basic training and often afterward there are communal showers. Nobody would ever force a woman to take a shower with a bunch of men. Yet a straight man forced to take a shower with a homosexual man is going to be okay? They either have to have separate showers or face lawsuits.
Leftist Gays hate Western/American traditional culture worse than they hate Muslims,
so I don’t think your recruitment idea will work.
The last bastion of traditional Americanism — our military — is about to be culturally destroyed by an anti-military leftist. Little pr!ck Obama would have no idea what service to country is about. We’ll see how retention holds up among the troops now.
Before DADT gay military folk stayed in the closet, some Gay folk mistook Clintoons half a$$ed action premptivly, and outed themselves, and many got kicked out.
In the end it’s bad for unit cohesion, and the health of any service member requiring an emergency transfusion.
Gay folk please STFU. The less we know, the less we care.
Take a clue from the clOwn and keep your hidden desires to yourself. And don’t join our military if you engage in risky STD type behavior.
“They either have to have separate showers or face lawsuits.”
Not that that would matter to this nation’s Left. The quicker they can unravel unit cohesiveness and destroy our military the better for them. They’ve always thought the military is an irritant anyway.
This report comes from an “anonymous source” within Obama’s team. Doesn’t sound that reliable.
I see this as something for Obama’s second term, right now the military is pretty essential with actions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Once Obama has achieved a permanent world peace, it will be safe to establish this policy.
As the parent of a soon-to-be Marine my ONLY concern is the transmission of HIV/AIDS in the battlefield. Chances of blood to blood contact among brothers in arms under fire would be higher.
I honestly don't think any heterosexual man or woman is going to accept a pass made at him or her by a homosexual. I also don't want to think that homophobia among straights would make homosexuals at risk for fratricide. What is done in the privacy of one's own home is totally up to them. I wouldn't like to think the military would approve of sexual encounters among the men and women of whatever sexual orientation out in the open in the barracks.
Everyone needs to take a hard look at the real issues and dangers of Gays serving in the military. It's not about the sex, it's about the disease if it's present.
“Gay folk please STFU. The less we know, the less we care.”
The point is, they WANT to make a big deal of themselves. To them, so what if unit cohesiveness suffers. It’s all about THEM anyway, right? F**king liberals... they don’t give a s**t about the future of this country.
“Once Obama has achieved a permanent world peace, it will be safe to establish this policy.”
Permanent World Peace...somehow, I think that’s really “above his pay grade.”
Obama already F ing up the military. Here is a dire prediction. Straights will flee the military in droves and it will become a haven for aggressive homosexuals.
What ele can happen when enlisted men and officers will have the right to make it known they are gay?
As if who you have sex with and how has any place in the military. Other than to disrupt it. Sick.
Quick easy way to F up the U.S. Military. Let fags be open about their being sick freaks and are welcome.
Hey marine, ya big sissy. Pretty sick.
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