11/21/2009
Senate Hearings on 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Postponed Indefinitely
U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee hearings on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" have been postponed:
"A planned November hearing by the US Senate Armed Services Committee to consider ending a ban on gays serving openly in the US military will be postponed, a spokeswoman indicated Friday. 'We do not have a date' for the hearing, said the aide, Tara Andringa. Committee staff have been working on Afghanistan issues ahead of President Barack Obama's decision on whether to send more troops, and more recently on the aftermath of the shock rampage at the sprawling Fort Hood military base. The panel's chairman, Democratic Senator Carl Levin, had said in late October that it would hold a hearing in November and that he hoped to 'to find a way to repeal 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell,'' as the policy is widely known."
Lez Get Real talked to Levin's office:
"'Yes, we don’t know when that is going to happen,' said an aide from Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Carl Levin’s office. In October Levin had said that his committee would begin holding hearing in November and that he hoped to “to find a way to repeal the military’s ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’” policy. But, Levin said in an interview on C-SPAN’s Newsmakers program, scheduled to air Sunday, the hearings on any possible repeal of 'DADT' will likely happen next year...According to the staffer, Levin also stressed in his Newsmakers interview, that the delay necessitated by current events should not be interpreted 'as any effort to avoid the hearing' on the subject however. While giving no timetable for the hearings, Levin did say that the 2011 National Defense Authorization Act could be one of the vehicles to carry repeal legislation. Both the White House and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) are also backing the strategy of using next years defense authorization bill to change the policy on LGBT’s serving in the military according to Capitol Hill insiders."
Posted 12:42 PM EST by Andy Towle in Carl Levin, Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Military, News | Permalink
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Translation: "Don't Ask Don't Tell" hearings will commence when Brian Boitano does a triple-Lutz in the Ninth Circle.
Our "fierce advocate" is a Total Putz!
Posted by: David Ehrenstein | Nov 21, 2009 12:57:17 PM
The Senate needs to focus on health care until it is passed and then jobs, jobs, jobs. I don't mind if DADT is kicked down the road for this.
DADT will be included in the upcoming Defense Authorization Bill so it really hasn't been "postponed indefinitely" assuming that it will be included.
Government is s...l...o...w. That's just the way it is.
Posted by: Brian in Texas | Nov 21, 2009 2:08:09 PM
That's the senate's way of saying never. Thank you, democrats! Thank you for proving that the only difference between you two on this issue is rhetoric.
Posted by: TANK | Nov 21, 2009 2:15:55 PM
If the Democrats have the nerve to take this up next year -- an off-year election year -- I'll eat every damned hat I own.
Posted by: K in VA | Nov 21, 2009 2:19:50 PM
Meanwhile, the continuation of this terrible policy continues to affect lives. Here, quoted below, is a current case, reported in Toronto's 'Globe and Mail'.
"The Federal Court says the refugee board must reconsider the case of a lesbian who deserted from the U.S. army and fled to Canada.
Judge Yves de Montigny says the board erred last February when it rejected Bethany Smith's bid for refugee status. Ms. Smith says she fled the army because she was harassed and threatened by fellow soldiers over her sexual orientation.
She says she couldn't seek help from her superiors because she feared they might have been part of the harassment.
The judge said the board must reconsider her case because it unfairly dismissed evidence suggesting that gays face harsher treatment in the American military justice system.
Ms. Smith says she would fear for her life if she were deported and returned to the army."
Come on up north all ye harassed GBLT Americans. We'll care for you up here.
Posted by: William | Nov 21, 2009 4:04:57 PM
It'll be timed around election time, to get gay's to vote for their candidates again. Promises, election, inaction.
Posted by: CB | Nov 21, 2009 5:51:49 PM
Perhaps now that President Obama-haters see the ways that CONGRESS is against this, they will stop blaming him for everything.
You cannot change a LAW without votes. You cannot change a LAW without going through the Senate's committee process, which takes time, favors, deal-making, and backroom arm-twisting.
Those who think that this is President Obama's fault are *incredibly* ignorant and not just clueless about but *hostile* towards basic knowledge about our flawed legislative process.
YES: *Retired* military brass are against DA/DT. But far, far more military *within* the services are FOR the law of the land, and DA/DT is the LAW that requires repeal. These military men inside the service carry great weight with the Armed Services Committee, not to mention the homophobes on both sides of the aisle, Democratic and Republican.
NONE of this is President Obama's fault. Yet, I don't see some gay people criticizing CONGRESS! The blame is laid at the President's feet in the dumbest manner possible.
Every executive must set priorities when dealing with a leadership body like Congress. The American government is not a dictatorship.
If it is THIS hard to reform some of the WORSE practices of the health insurance industry (and they are bad, bad practices), then imagine how hard it will be for Congress to do ANYTHING gay-related.
But, let's not forget that the White House supported the Hate Crimes legislation and it passed.
Thus, let's put the pressure where it belongs: on the Senators on the Armed Services Committee. They are the men and women who will be first to consider the repeal of DA/DT.
Posted by: veg | Nov 21, 2009 6:38:21 PM
Veg, the only person hostile to basic knowledge is you. Obama could have effectively ended DADT on his first day in office by making an executive order instating stop-loss on gay soldiers. That would then give congress at least four if not eight years to repeal DADT.
Posted by: Marc | Nov 21, 2009 10:10:20 PM
MARC:
I mean you know disrespect but, frankly, your comments conveys disinformation about basic civics.
An executive order from the president DOES NOT change LAWS. Nor does it buy time before a law changes.
Laws must be repealed by an act of Congress.
If executive orders could change or make law then we would have a dictatorship.
Look up the definition of stop-loss (even wikipedia has a good definition). It refers to the reduction or build-up of troop levels and it has no bearing on DA/DT.
Please stop repeating thoughtless concepts.
What in God's name is stopping you from lobbying Congress?
That's what I'm doing!
That's where the real problem and obstacles lie, Marc.
Posted by: veg | Nov 21, 2009 10:30:02 PM
A stop-loss directive would indeed end all discharges.
Unfortunately, it would also end discharges for those who want out. If you're serving under a stop-loss order, you cannot be discharged under DADT or any other circumstance without presidential approval. There are bureaucratic hassles associated with the idea that gay critics of the president either don't think or care about.
Congress enacted the legislation specifically to allow the president to use stop-loss to keep members of the military in against their will. Using it to circumvent DADT doesn't merely raise questions about separation of powers in the broader philosophical sense, it is also very hard to implement within the confines of a law designed to hold people in servitude who want to leave. The DOD would have to create a new procedure to do "selective" stop-loss. And even after they figure out the details, it might be declared illegal by a court.
Obama is correct in asserting that our energies are best spent getting Congress to repeal the damn thing entirely rather than play Bush-Cheney style games within the current - less than favorable - legal framework.
Posted by: John | Nov 21, 2009 11:02:14 PM
What a coincidence, my vote and political donations to the DNC just got put off indefinitely as well!
Fancy that.
If the Dems want either, they'll have to fucking earn it for a change. It's always "wait" with them, isn't it.
Wait till we have the house
Wait till we have the senate
Wait till we have the presidency
Wait till healthcare is done
Wait for more jobs
Wait till 2011
Wait till nothing "more important" comes up
WAIT = NEVER.
Oh, p.s. to the homos saying "I can wait"... you obviously have nothing on the line, do you.
Posted by: Grimmlok | Nov 22, 2009 12:33:30 AM
Yes, the following is an extremely long response but anyone who genuninely cares about the injustice of DADT should familiarize themselves with its contents that contradict the distortions of "Veg" and "John" [same person/different handles?] and others like them. For despite their pomposity to the contrary, they don't know shit from Shinola about the "stop-loss" law...or they are consciously lying.
In other words: in all likelihood ... because the core of what I've documented below has been out there for months...they are simply willing members of the Obama Borg who will say anything to defend him...even if it means betraying their fellow gay men and women. If the gay community were a country they would be guilty of treason. [Note Veg's initial target of, not the facts, but "Obama haters" as well as their claims of concern about alleged Presidential abuse of power but are willing to stand silent while the Pentagon tail wags the Commander-in-Chief dog blah blah blah.]
Here are the FACTS as documented by historians. attorneys, and other experts on Constitutional and military law at the Palm Center at US Santa Barbara:
“Congress has authorized the President, via statute [10 United States Code 1230; see text below], to suspend ANY law regarding military separations during national security emergencies. Hence, an executive order would not be a matter of the President choosing [to circumvent or] ‘not enforce a law’ but an appropriate exercise of executive authority granted directly by Congressional statute.”
NEITHER would use of an executive order to freeze discharges be a violation of “separation of powers” because the authority to stop discharges was given TO the office of the President BY Congress, the branch primarily responsible for regulating the military under Article 1 of the US Constitution.
If Congress had felt the need to prevent him from applying it to ANY group, including homosexuals, they would have written such exception into the law.
No less than Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is on record as having asked the President TO ISSUE A STOP LOSS ORDER! Are you accusing HIM of not understanding the law?
And both he and Levin have said that repeal will NOT happen without active PRESIDENTIAL leadership.
Further, “Don’t ask, don’t tell as codified by Congress, grants significant authority to the Secretary of Defense to devise and implement the procedures under which investigations, separation proceedings, and other personnel actions will be carried out. In fact, Secretary Gates has said he is looking for ways to relax enforcement of the law WITHOUT APPROVAL FROM CONGRESS.”
There’s every reason to believe Gates’ announcement was another stall that he has no intention of implementing [for a 12-yr. old with Google could find such ways that he keeps insisting the brightest legal minds in the Pentagon (oxymoron?) can’t], but the point is that it proves the Administration recognizes that it DOES have alternatives to simply waiting for Congress to repeal.
The assertion that such a freeze "would not buy time before" repeal is on its face patently retarded. Had he implemented it on January 20th, some 517 gay servicemembers would still be IN the military that have been kicked to the curb since then....and counting.
This is NOT the first time in our nation’s history that the stop-loss concept has been applied to gays, both when banning gays from the military was policy AND after it became a law
Based on research by Allen Berube for "Coming Out Under Fire," in World War II it once took an extreme form when "the adjutant general ordered the commanding general of the West Coast Air Corps Training Center in California to review the cases of some men ALREADY CONVICTED OF SODOMY "to determine their respective availability for military service" with "the view of conserving all available manpower for service in the Army." He canceled the men's dishonorable discharges and made them eligible for reassignment AFTER COMPLETING THEIR PRISON SENTENCES!
In 1945, facing manpower shortages during the final European offensive in Europe, Secty of War, Harry Stimson, ordered a review of all gay discharges and ordered commanders to "salvage" homosexual soldiers for service whenever necessary.
The number of men discharged for being gay during WWII was only in the low thousands out of 16 MILLION men who served. That's A LOT of "looking the other way" no matter how low one thinks the incidence of homosexuality is in the population.
Before and after both the Korean and Vietnam wars, gay discharge #s reveal an screamingly obvious stop-loss pattern: when they needed cannon fodder gay discharges plummeted; when they didn’t, they went back to normal rates. E.g., in 1966 the Navy alone discharged 1708 gays. In 1970—when the US was deep in the mud of the Vietnam War—they only discharged 461.
During the first Gulf War, a Pentagon spokesman said in relation to gay discharges, "Any administrative procedure is dependent on operational considerations of the unit that would administer such proceedings." [And they will do whatever the President tells them to, formally or informally.]
In the "Army Commander's Handbook," updated in 1999 and still in effect, under the criterion of homosexuality: "if discharge is not requested prior to the unit's receipt of alert notification, discharge isn't authorized. Member will enter active duty with the unit."
In 2005, a military spokesperson acknowledged they were sending openly gay service members into combat in Iraq.
Congressionally mandated legal authority, historical precedent more than half-a-century long, majority public opposition to DADT, and the documentable need of EVERY fit servicemember which Obama himself has repeatedly acknowledged [versus the exceptions being given to convicted felons and bribing foreign nationals with money and promises of citizenship for enlisting] in sustaining the nation's security when we are at war gives him every justification.
All he NEEDS is the will.
TEXT of 10 USC 12305:
“Notwithstanding ANY other provision of law, during any period members of a reserve component are serving on active duty pursuant to an order to active duty under authority of section 12301, 12302, or 12304 of this title, the President may suspend ANY provision of law relating to promotion, retirement, or separation applicable to ANY member of the armed forces who the President determines is essential to the national security of the
United States.”
Posted by: Michael @ LeonardMatlovich.com | Nov 22, 2009 1:01:30 AM
In other words, bend-over.
Posted by: NVTodd | Nov 22, 2009 2:15:42 AM
All I can say is that if we have to wait; the gays will feel betrayed and will remember that during the next election cycle. Having that said, I fear that it may be too late to affect the "Change" that he promised upon taking the oath of office. Passing the hate crime legislation; which did not cover all of the bases by the way, but it was good enough to say that he has gotten the gays off of his back. I am really disappointed with him and may not vote for him and start a third party.
Posted by: Jeff Dunivant | Nov 22, 2009 5:40:46 AM
Obama was suppose to be our fierce advocate. He should be standing up for us before congress and the country to move them in the right direction. He hasn't and he doesn't show that he will. Good luck to him in 2012.
Posted by: Zeke | Nov 22, 2009 8:19:41 AM
stop complaining, the view from the back of the bus can be nice sometimes
Posted by: Donald | Nov 22, 2009 8:21:47 AM
Thank you Michael for the extensive information you have provided. Those are facts and show what Obama could have done and should be doing. Some of the people on this board act like he is without flaw. That there is nothing he could have done. Wrong! Read Michael's excellent response ans stop making excuses for him. Congress is also at fault. They are doing nothing but delaying. Soon the excuse will be they can't vote on that during an election year. Obama, if he really wanted this, would have been lobbying Congress and really pushing it. He has not. He does not care what happens to this or other gay issues. He only cares, as most politicians do, about getting elected again. He was not the change we could believe in but the same tired shit in a younger package. Rahm Emanuel is part of the issue. In David Mixner's book about the Clinton years he talks about Emaanuel and being a stumbling block then. I knew we were in trouble when Barack chose him. I voted for Obama warily and wish we had had a better option. Just look at it this way: no dollars to him or the Democratic party until they do something, and if at the end of his first term nothing more is done, than he should not have earned our votes again and he will not get mine. Period.
Posted by: Rann | Nov 22, 2009 9:11:28 AM
Shifted to the back burner... again.
Posted by: Island Girly | Nov 22, 2009 9:29:14 AM
So many bitter pantsuit sniffers up in here.
Posted by: 24play | Nov 22, 2009 11:46:05 AM
Nobody said it couldn't be done. Rather, the argument is it should not be done because it'll create unnecessary trouble and complicate the process.
Congress and the media will not accept the biased conclusions of liberal professors at UC Santa Barbara or the San Francisco Bar Association as absolutely true. Republicans and Democrats have lawyers too you know. And if you ask the faculty at Pepperdine, Ole Miss, or BYU, you're going to get vastly different conclusions about whether unilateral action from the White House is feasible logistically or tactically. All the examples these experts provided are anecdotal rather than an official, declared policy. Roosevelt didn't use one of his fireside chats to announce that gays in the military is a good policy that we should pursue. It was done in secret, without public debate, and not with a little amount of consternation.
Obama doesn't have that luxury.
As for treason? Is that anything like apartheid South Africa sentencing Mandela to prison for being a traitor to a country that treats him as less than a domesticated animal?
The accusation implies that I am a citizen of your little community in the first place. Alas, I am the wrong race. As a descendant of one of those "violent savages" from the so-called Third World, I regret that I have never been welcomed in your exclusive Homo Nazi club. And I have stopped caring either way.
If it comes down to gay minutiae versus health care or poverty fighting programs that actually affect my community, so long gays. I'd gladly throw you all "under the bus," as you erroneously put it, myself. And please stop trying to invoke the memory of a civil rights movement many of you opposed and continue to oppose.-
Posted by: John | Nov 22, 2009 12:22:45 PM
Obama could have legally stopped this. He didn't.
Obama could continue to press the issue. He keeps lobbing it off so it can be studied.
Congress can't make up its damned mind. We have a bully pulpit and we're not using it.
I have half a mind to vote Republican next term just to spite the cowards that are the Democrats. But I'll vote Libertarian instead. I'm sick of both major parties.
Anyone who thinks that the discharge of 500 soldiers this year alone has not impacted the economic state and safety of America is just foolish.
Posted by: DR | Nov 22, 2009 2:24:58 PM
Yes, DR, you have half a mind. On that much, we can agree.
Posted by: 24play | Nov 22, 2009 3:33:47 PM
THE REPUBLICANS ARE WAITING FOR YOU. NOW ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS BE A FOOL AND JOIN THEM!!!!
Posted by: Avataria | Nov 22, 2009 6:04:42 PM
Yes lets continue to postpone this and risk not only my Partner's career but potentially his life! How many more of us Gay Veterans need to suffer at the hands of prejudice and violence? Do they not realize the damage it has done to the lives of others including mine?
Do they have no realization what life is like living with PTSD because of being physically beaten for being Gay? Of course not.. These are mere politicians who care nothing for the troubles of others...
It has been well over thirteen years of silence suffocation for us. We need to repeal this now!
Posted by: Jason Farr | Nov 23, 2009 3:10:53 AM
2011 Defense Appropriation?...more like 2015 if Pres. Obama, Sen. Levin and Rep. Frank are stilll on-office so the Party can continue to shack-down the G/L community for campaign funds. The Gay-ATM is always open....
Posted by: Ted B. (Charging Rhino) | Nov 23, 2009 1:21:23 PM