Senators Carl Levin (D-MI) and John McCain (R-AZ) are in talks to remove all potentially controversial provisions from S.3454, the Defense Authorization Bill for FY 2011. One of those provisions is the repeal of Don't Ask - Don't Tell, which would allow GLBT soldiers to serve openly.
There is an article with more details at Congress.org News.
Senator Levin is the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and Senator McCain is the ranking Republican.
It is far past time for DADT to be repealed. It is also far past time to stop kowtowing to Congressional Republicans in a false sense of bipartisanship. S. 3454 needs to be passed with the repeal of DADT intact. If it is not repealed in this lame-duck session, it's going to be a long, long time before Congress considers repealing it again. We already know that the White House is not going to act independently to repeal this stupid policy.
This is going to be a short diary. The contact information for both Levin and McCain is below. Please contact them and ask them to leave the repeal of DADT in the Defense Authorization Bill.
US Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121 (call and ask for the office of the congresscritter you want).
Senator Levin: 202-224-6221. Levin also be contacted through his Senate web page at http://levin.senate.gov/...
Senator McCain: 202-224-2235. McCain's contact form is at http://mccain.senate.gov/...