This morning on Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace interviewed Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Wallace asked Gates a couple of questions that gave us some disturbing insight into the President's commitment to his campaign promise to repeal the discriminatory Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT) policy.
Here's the clip:
Transcript:
WALLACE: In January, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs gave a one word answer, "Yes" when asked if this President is going to end the policy of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" for gays in the military. Where does that stand and why is there currently money in the 2010 budget to keep enforcing that policy?
GATES: Well it continues to be the law. Uh and any change in the policy would require a change in the law. Uh, we will follow the law, whatever it is. Um that dialog, though, has not really progressed very far at this point in the Administration. Uh I think the President and I think we've got a lot on our plates right now and um, let's push that one down the road a little bit.
Unsurprisingly, the establishment gay rights organizations are asleep at the wheel on this one. A quick check of HRC's website reveals absolutely no mention of this waffling on standing up for equal rights. Same goes for the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network website.
But the gay netroots certainly didn't fail to notice. From Pam Spaulding on Pam's House Blend:
So the first question is why hasn't the dialog progressed? Presidential candidate Obama needled John McCain for not being able to "walk and chew gum at the same time"; in this case he had the data points in hand supporting repeal before he took office. If the administration doesn't want to use the political capital, someone should just say it and take the heat rather than issue this mealy-mouthed position -- and continue the discrimination.
From Blender Keori, also on Pam's House Blend:
In the first two months we have gotten the President hosting FRC (Family Research Council) and CWA (Concerned Women for America) at the White House, a beefed-up Office of Government-Endorsed Christianity - sorry, Office of Faith-Based Initiatives headed up by an evangelical anti-gay "pastor", a signing of a non-binding U.N. resolution that doesn't actually obligate the Administration to DO anything for LGBT people in this country, and now this. We have heard NO declarations of support for marriage equality at the state level. We have heard NO official statements of support for immigration equality, AIDS research and treatment, an inclusive ENDA, the Matthew Shepard Act, or the repeal of DOMA. And now, we have it from Obama's own Defense Secretary that discriminating against gays willing to die for their country is perfectly okay with him.
emphasis mine
Keori makes the excellent point that thus far the Obama Administration has done NOTHING concrete for the LGBT community. His only actions so far are simply non-binding gestures...PR moves. He's done a lot of talking, but no walking.
There will be apologists for the Administration who will point out that President Obama has only been in office for a couple months and that we are jumping to conclusions about President Obama's commitment to follow through on his campaign promises. Unfortunately for those apologists though, this is no longer a legitimate argument.
President Obama chose to fund DADT enforcement programs in his FY2010 budget. That means that President Obama fully intends to continue funding the homophobic witch hunts that comprises the DADT enforcement programs for at least the next 2 years.
The other problem with those apologists argument is that repealing DADT is not a labor intensive action to take. Congress needs to vote on a bill to amend the UCMJ and repeal the DADT rules and President Obama needs to sign it. Yet despite the fact that 75% of Americans believe DADT should be repealed, the Democrats and the Obama Administration don't seem to have cajones or the principles to end this federally mandated discrimination.
Since the policy was implemented in 1994, more than 13,000 LGBT members of the military have been discharged because of how they were born. Nearly 1,000 of them were "mission-critical" specialists--including pilots, intelligence analysts, medics and linguists. A Blue Ribbon Commission Report estimated that it cost the government more than $363.8 million to replace and train service members due to DADT discharges that took place between 1994 and 2003.
Make no mistake. The enforcement of DADT policies take the form of regular witch hunts searching for homosexual members of the military. Take this recent story from The Advocate:
Kansas Lesbian Discharged From National Guard
========================================================
A nine-year member of the Kansas Army National Guard was discharged under the military's ban on gay, lesbian, and bisexual service members...
A civilian coworker saw Brian kissing another woman in a Wal-Mart checkout line. The Iraq war veteran was investigated and was "separated" in January.
"I was not separated because of any type of misconduct but plain and simply because someone else had a problem with my sexuality," she said.
...
In July 2008 another gay guardsman warned Brian that someone was targeting her and recommended that she delete her MySpace account, in which she says she is a lesbian. Someone sent anonymous e-mails to her superiors, notifying them of her sexual orientation, prompting an investigation. The following month, a lieutenant told her she was being investigated for homosexual conduct.
President Obama has decided to be complicit in this federally mandated homophobic discrimination. Apparently he thinks he's too busy to remove a line item from the budget and too busy to use his bully pulpit to put pressure on Congress even though he's talking to the press 2 or 3 times a day.
Well maybe members of the LGBT community will just be too busy for the next couple of elections until the Democratic Party proves that we're a valuable constituency worthy of equal protection under the law.
[Update @ 5:01pm]: It appears I spoke too soon regarding the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN). They just released the following statement regarding Gates' comments this morning:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 29, 2009
SLDN Responds to Sec. Gates on Fox News Sunday
National Security Demands Multitasking
WASHINGTON, DC -- When asked about a timetable on revisiting "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" this morning on Fox News Sunday, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said that he and the president have "a lot on our plates right now. Let's push that one down the road a little bit."
"Sec. Gates hardly gave a sound reason for kicking 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' down the road -- or essentially back tracking on a campaign promise made by his Commander in Chief," said Aubrey Sarvis, executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. "I trust the secretary was not speaking for President Obama, who, hopefully, will issue the call for repeal when he sends his Defense Department budget to Congress in a few weeks. This is about timely leadership."
Sarvis continued. "It's also called multitasking. Right now is the time -- while we're engaged in two wars -- we need the most qualified men and women serving. This is not the time to keep firing linguists and intelligence analysts because of their sexual orientation. The longer the president and Pentagon delay the issue, the fewer linguists and intelligence analysts the Pentagon will have to call on to fight terrorism in Pakistan and Afghanistan."
More than 800 hundred mission-critical service members (linguists, intelligence analysts) have been fired under the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law. Almost 13,000 total service members have been discharged since 1994.
"It's not easy or cheap to replace mission critical personnel," said Sarvis. "And the serious felons we're now recruiting probably don't have a command of Arabic or Farsi, or know how to analyze intelligence."
I hope the SLDN will keep the pressure on.