After Senate Vote, What's Next for 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'
It also turns up the heat on President Barack Obama to make good on a campaign pledge to end the ban on military service by open gays and lesbians.
Thanks to a Republican filibuster in the Senate that fell three votes short of repeal, time may have run out for legislative action in the lame-duck Congress. With the GOP set to take control of the House in January, and with a smaller Democratic majority in the Senate, gay rights advocates view the chances for congressional action as next to nil.
"Maybe there will be some cosmic trade where tax rates are reduced to zero and in return Republicans graciously assent to equality," said Aaron Belkin, director of the Palm Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara. "But short of that, it will be hard to agree to anything."
Gay rights advocates vow to fight on to repeal the law that has led to the expulsion of more than 14,000 service members and keeps many more still serving in the closet.
"If Congress won't act, it's up to the president to clean up the mess they made when they enacted this discriminatory and unconstitutional law nearly two decades ago," said Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay advocacy group.
A look at the remaining battle fronts and pathways to repeal:
Vote on the same bill again, attach repeal to other legislation or make it a stand-alone bill before the lame-duck session gavels to a close. Gay rights groups will rally near the Capitol on Friday to implore lawmakers to work through the Christmas holiday to pass repeal this year. Obama urged the Senate "to revisit" the issue during the lame-duck session but it is unclear whether that prospect will happen given the press of other Senate business, not least of all a controversial tax-cut deal that must get done by New Year's Eve.- Issue an executive order. Obama has shied away from this option, saying such a momentous policy switch should be done by Congress. Now that lawmakers have shut the door for now, he could use his powers as commander in chief to order all discharges of gays and lesbians to stop. Gay rights advocates say the president could use the same stop-loss authority the Pentagoninvoked after the Sept. 11 attacks to retain critical service personnel in a time of war.
- Stop fighting in court. The Obama administration has defended the policy in federal court, even though the president wants to end it. The Justice Department could drop its opposition to a decision by a federal court judge in California that found "don't ask, don't tell" to be unconstitutional. At the very least, it could instruct government lawyers to inform the federal appeals court now considering the case that the executive branch believes the policy to be unconstitutional. The ban remains in place for now, and, even if the administration reverses course, the final word is likely to come in the U.S. Supreme Court.
- Just do it. With military leaders testifying last week that the most disruptive scenario would be to repeal the policy immediately by "judicial fiat" and with 70 percent of service members reporting they already have served with gays, the Pentagon could quietly ease out the ban over time and through training.
But at a time when the president's liberal supporters are livid over the tax-cut deal, Obama may not want to give gay and lesbian supporters already are peeved at him another reason to stay home on Election Day 2012.
"The gay community will demand that the president stop defending 'don't ask, don't tell' in court and immediately cease the discharges," said Americablog writer and gay activist John Aravosis.
"We were forced to try this his way," he said about the Pentagon's insistence on a nearly year-long study. "If that doesn't work, it's going to happen our way, or else."
by Andrea Stone aolnews,com
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