After Defense Secretary Robert Gates outraged gay activists by telling Congress to wait to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell until after a policy review is finished this December, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee asked him to clarify what, exactly, that review is for.
Is its purpose, Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) asked in a letter (PDF), to determine “whether” to repeal the statute, or “how” to repeal it?
It’s “how,” Gates wrote in response.
In a letter, he said that his position, and the department’s, is that the “question before us” is how to best prepare the military for repeal. The reviewers, he said, will judge the “impact of repealing” DADT and develop a plan to do so “in the most informed and effective manner possible.”
Pro-repeal folks, however, want the policy — which forbids gay men and women in the military to disclose their sexuality — repealed before December. They want Democrats to include repeal in the Defense Authorization Bill, which will be debated this summer and which must pass in order to fund the military.
The miltiary, however, has made it clear that they want to control the timeline. Gates, along with Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen, wrote in a letter to Rep. Ike Skelton (D-MO) that they would “strongly oppose” legislation to repeal the policy before the review is up.
“I hope Congress will not do so, as it would send a very damaging message to our men and women in uniform that in essence their views, concerns, and perspectives do not matter on an issue with such a direct impact and consequence for them and their families,” they told Skelton, who chairs the House Armed Services Committee.
Levin has reportedly been trying to gather the votes on his committee to insert repeal into the authorization bill. His office could not immediately comment to TPM on the status of repeal.
Even if repeal isn’t part of the authorization bill, DADT will likely get some limelight this summer during the confirmation hearings for Elena Kagan. Kagan, the solicitor general who was nominated today to the Supreme Court, banned military recruiters from Harvard Law School when she was the dean. She argued that DADT violated the school’s non-discrimination policy. Republicans have already begun attacking Kagan for, as Sen. Jon Kyl put it today, “her decision to put her own gay rights agenda above U.S. law.
(H/T Federal Eye)
Late update: A spokeswoman for Skelton declined to comment before the full committee markup, which is scheduled for May 19.
