DADT: President And Senate Ignore GOP House As It Tries To Stall Repeal

In a clear effort to stall repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, twenty-three Republican members of the 435 member U.S. House of Representatives sent President Obama a letter Thursday asking that he delay certification of the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) to allow Congress time to “review.” But their efforts are clearly in vain, as they are all but powerless now to stop the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Despite the fact that the House included three anti-gay amendments in its version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the Senate Armed Services Committee just elected to remove them, and no anti-gay amendments are expected to be in the final version of the NDAA when it goes to President Obama’s desk, once it passes the Senate.

“As predicted, the Senate Armed Services Committee has remained focused on serious military issues and has refused to waste time and taxpayer money trying to delay or stop the repeal of the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ law,” said Alexander Nicholson, Executive Director of Servicemembers United. “The leader of last year’s efforts to keep the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ law on the books sits on this committee, yet no one even tried to introduce a companion amendment to the ridiculous House amendments. This just goes to show that this debate is settled and that Congress needs to focus on the serious issues of the day instead of being distracted by Congressman Duncan Hunter’s circus sideshow over in the House.”

Nicholson notes that the “House version of the National Defense Authorization Act, passed on May 26, contained an amendment introduced by Congressman Duncan Hunter (CA-52) that would delay certification of the repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law, and other amendments that would restate and expand the Defense of Marriage Act. The new Senate Armed Services Committee markup would also repeal Article 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice – the military’s outdated sodomy law.”

Of the 240 Republican members of the House, it is rather embarrassing that Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) was able to organize less than ten percent of his colleagues to put their names on a letter, not in the interest of national defense, but clearly in the interest of upholding bigotry and animus.

“Given the necessity for congressional review, which has been limited to this point, we respectfully request that you refrain from transmitting certification until Congress has had sufficient time to review pending legislative matters of policy and law,”  the Washington Blade reports the letter states.

“Leading the group of U.S. House members who signed the letter is Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), who amended pending defense budget legislation to expand the certification requirement needed for “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal and potentially disrupt the implementation of open service.

“Others among the 23 signers of the letter are Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), chair of the House Armed Services personnel subcommittee, as well as Reps. Steven Palazzo (R-Miss.), W. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) and Vicky Hartzler (R-Mo.).”

“Merely providing ‘training and educational’ briefs to our service members is not enough to justify moving forward with certification when consequential policy and regulatory changes associated with implementation must be reviewed by Congress under its oversight function,” the letter states. “Until those policy changes have been delivered and reviewed by Congress, it would be irresponsible to proceed with the certification process.”

Earlier this week Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he saw no reason why certification of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell repeal couldn’t move forward this month, and have implementation complete by the end of September.

In another development of note, the Senate Armed Service Committee’s press release on the NDAA states that the bill “Amends Article 120 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) relating to the offenses of rape, sexual assault, and other sexual misconduct, to create three separate articles of the UCMJ to correct deficiencies in existing law.”

Earlier this year, as The New Civil Rights Movement reported, the Pentagon was sued in a rape and sexual assault class-action lawsuit. A bipartisan bill to support the 19,000 annual military victims of sexual assault in the United States Armed Forces was introduced in April.

No word yet on if that notation in the Senate press release relates specifically to those issues.