Senators Say They'll Offer Stand-Alone Bill to Repeal the Military Gay Ban

Two senators said they will introduce a separate measure to repeal a U.S. ban on gays serving openly in the military after Democrats yesterday failed to get enough votes for the Senate to consider the legislation.

Senators Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, and Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, will jointly introduce a stand-alone proposal to end the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, they told reporters yesterday in a news conference.

The 57-40 vote fell short of the 60 senators needed for the chamber to take up a defense spending bill that included the repeal. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said he couldn’t reach agreement with Republicans on terms that would have allowed debate of the broader spending legislation.

“They’re all doing what they can to stand in the way of the bill,” Reid said on the Senate floor, telling colleagues that “we tried every possible way to move forward on this.”

Collins was the only Republican to vote in favor of advancing the defense-spending legislation with the repeal provision. Joe Manchin of West Virginia was the lone Democrat in opposition.

The courts may ultimately decide the matter if Congress fails to repeal the policy in the waning days of the current congressional session. A federal trial judge in September ruled the ban unconstitutional. The Supreme Court last month allowed the law to remain in effect during appeals.

‘Disappointing’ Vote

While the “vote was disappointing, it must not be the end of our efforts,” President Barack Obama said in a statement yesterday. “This law weakens our national security, diminishes our military readiness and violates fundamental American principles of fairness, integrity and equality.”

Prospects for separate legislation this year would depend on the progress of negotiations and debates on other measures, such as government funding for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, extending Bush-era tax cuts, and ratifying a nuclear-arms reduction treaty with Russia.

In January, supporters of permitting gays to serve openly in the armed forces would face a Republican majority in the House of Representatives and a smaller Democratic majority in the Senate.

The “vote is heartbreaking and demoralizing,” said OutServe, a group of actively serving gay members of the armed forces, in a statement yesterday.

House Vote

The Democratic-controlled House approved a measure in May to end the policy. The Senate in September voted 56-43 to block an earlier bid to permit floor action on the legislation.

Obama pledged in his January 2010 State of the Union address to lift the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

Reid said he worked with Collins and Lieberman to reach an agreement on Republican demands for permitting amendments to the defense spending bill.

Collins, who voted with Democrats to go forward with the repeal, said she was “perplexed and frustrated that this important bill is going to become a victim of politics” on a procedural vote.

“I want to vote to proceed with this bill,” Collins said on the Senate floor before the vote. “There was such a clear path for us to be able to get this bill done.”

Republican Opposition

Arizona Senator John McCain led most Republicans in fighting repeal during this year’s session, citing a Pentagon study showing that soldiers in combat units and Marines were more concerned than other service members about letting gays serve openly in their units.

The provision is part of broader legislation to set defense spending policy. The repeal measure may be removed from the defense bill to allow the defense policy legislation to pass before the end of the congressional term.

Supporters of repeal sought to sway a handful of Republicans, including Collins and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. Both said they would support a vote as long as Democratic leaders agreed to allow “sufficient debate and amendments” on the broader bill.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, last week urged Congress to end the ban so the Defense Department would have time to implement new rules, rather than running the risk that a federal court might order a sudden change.

Risk ‘Low’

Gates and Mullen cited the Pentagon study, released last week, saying it found the risk to overall military effectiveness would be “low.”

The 1993 “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, enacted under former President Bill Clinton, allows gay men and lesbians to serve in the military only if their sexual orientation isn’t disclosed.

The chiefs of most of the U.S. military services, including Army General George Casey, Air Force General Norton Schwartz and Marine Corps General James Amos said implementation of repeal should be delayed.

In a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing last week, Casey called repeal a “major cultural and policy change in the middle of a war.” Schwartz advocated waiting until at least 2012 to provide enough time to prepare, while Amos favored a delay until his Marines aren’t primarily focused on fighting the war in Afghanistan.

The legislation would have changed the policy only after Obama and military leaders determined it wouldn’t hurt military effectiveness.

“Wartime is exactly the right time to do everything we can to strengthen our military,” Reid said yesterday. “We can no longer ask our troops to die for a flag that represents justice and ask them to be false about themselves while they do it.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Viola Gienger in Washington at vgienger@bloomberg.net.