Frustrated by the failure of Congress to adopt his proposal to eliminate the ban on service by gay troops, the President today issued an executive order intended to soften the impact of that discriminatory law, and prevent the discharge of military personnel who violate the ban. The existing policy, implemented by a previous Democratic president, has long since proven to be needlessly cruel and destructive to the military, and surely, this new executive order will prove to be a humane, realistic vehicle for ameliorating that harm.
Of course, by "today," I mean December 21, 1993. By "the president," I mean William Jefferson Clinton. By "a previous Democratic president," I mean Harry S. Truman.
And by "an executive order intended to soften the impact of that discriminatory law, and prevent the discharge of military personnel who violate the ban," I mean Don't Ask Don't Tell.
In 1993, Congress passed the annual National Defense Authorization Act, which included language banning gay people from serving in the military, and directing the president to issue regulations implementing this policy. President Clinton, seeking to soften the effect of this cruel, pointless, and destructive law while it remained on the books, responded by issuing Defense Directive 1304.26, which was referred to as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Pursue." This directive made significant changes to the existing policies for investigating and discharging gay service members, changes intended to cease the practice of ending the careers of loyal, responsible troops who's sexual orientation was in no way harming the military's mission.
But it didn't turn out that way. Between institutional resistance within the military, the ongoing hostility towards gay troops by the Congressional Republican majority, and the succession to the presidency of George W. Bush, Clinton's well-intentioned effort to use his executive authority to push back against the homophobic law still on the books was soon a dead letter. Discharges of gay troops continued, and the military brass turned a blind eye to anyone "asking" and "pursuing" while adopting an absurdly broad definition of what constituted "telling."
There are those who insist that the issuance of an executive order intended to ameliorate the effects of the ban on service by openly-gay personnel, while leaving that ban in place as federal law, will be a meaningful and long-lasting solution to the scourge that is the existing policy. Indeed, there are those who are so convinced of the efficacy of such an approach that they wish to see President Obama issue such an order, even if it will have the effect of sabotaging the ongoing effort to repeal the ban in Congress.
One definition of insanity is do the same thing over and over, and expect different results. Repealing the Congressional ban on military service by gay people remains the only reliable, sustainable path to end this travesty. We should not settle for half-measures while that possibility remains within reach.