Pentagon: Still No Real Talks With White House About DADT

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Yesterday, Defense Department spokesman Geoff Morrell offered an update of sorts on the progress of a long-awaited repeal of the Pentagon’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, which forbids openly gay troops from serving in the military.

“I do not believe there are any plans under way in this building for some expected, but not articulated, anticipation that don’t ask-don’t tell will be repealed,” Morrell said at a press briefing. Pentagon leaders, he said, are “aware of where the president wants to go on this issue, but I don’t think that there is any sense of any immediate developments in the offing on efforts to repeal don’t ask-don’t tell.”

That represents no real change from nearly two months ago, when the Pentagon told me that President Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates had had “one brief conversation” about DADT.

The slow-walking of the repeal has angered civil rights activists, and has had real consequences for the military, too. Earlier this month Lt. Dan Choi–an Arabic linguist, still in high demand in the Armed Forces–was discharged for revealing his homosexuality.

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