As Philip Klein notes
here at The American
Spectator, the Senate today fell three votes short of
repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” This is a crushing defeat for
the media and the gay lobby, both of which have implemented a
full-court press for openly gay military service.
Unfortunately, this issue is not yet dead. The advocates
of openly gay service rightly sense that this may be their best
chance in years to force open homosexuality within the ranks. And
so, they are pressing for a second stand-alone vote before Congress
adjourns for Christmas.
Conservative GOP senators, led by John McCain, have a
political and moral obligation to stop them, and to keep this vote
from ever happening.
Sure, the media and the gay lobby believe that open
homosexuality within the ranks is a moral imperative; and that only
bigoted “homophobes” stand in the way of this urgent “progressive”
measure. The fact is, however, that gay men and women can and do
serve now in the U.S. military, and without incidence or
disruption, provided they keep their sexuality out of the
workplace.
But that’s not good enough for the apostles of “progress.”
No, they want explicit legal recognition and social approval for
homosexuality. Thus their demand that DADT be repealed.
Repeal was subsumed within the larger-scale defense
authorization bill. This meant that Senators who favored openly gay
service sometimes voted differently than you might have expected
had you only considered their views on “Don’t Ask, Don’t
Tell.”
GOP Senators Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Scott Brown
(Massachusetts), for instance, have said that they support
repealing DADT. However, they voted against commencing debate on
the defense authorization bill. GOP Senator Susan
Collins (R-Maine) had been expected to vote the same way, but at
the last minute, apparently, changed her vote. Collins’ decision
is especially interesting because she had been singled
out for special opprobrium by the Left for her supposed obstinacy
in the face of “progress.”
But what was Collins obstinate about, exactly? She wasn’t
obstinate about “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” a law she clearly
indicates she is willing to repeal. No, Collins was obstinate about
the Senate’s right to have a full, free, and open debate about the
defense authorization bill — and she is absolutely right about
that.
The Senate, after all, considers itself “the world’s
greatest deliberative body.” Surely, it is reasonable, then, to
expect that the Senate will take the time to carefully consider
defense policy — as opposed to ramming through legislation to meet
a far-left political imperative. Certainly, that’s not asking too
much.
So where does this leave us? Practically
speaking, it is impossible to see how “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” will
be repealed in the new Congress, which will have more than 60 new
House Republicans and six new GOP Senators. The vast majority of
these new Republican legislators, after all, will not vote to
require openly gay service.
The media and the gay lobby know this, of course. Which is
why they’re pulling out all the stops to ram through a repeal of
“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” now, in this the waning days of the current
Congress.
Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Connecticut), in fact, observed
on his Twitter
page
that:
Senator Reid told me he will bring our free-standing #DADT
repeal up for a vote before [the] end of [the] session… We are
working with our colleagues and are confident that there are at
least 60 Senators who support repeal.
Lieberman’s intense politicking on behalf of openly gay service
has been deeply disappointing and annoying. However, he is, I fear,
right: The votes in the Senate are now there to repeal “Don’t Ask,
Don’t Tell.”
Which is why Republican Senators, led by John McCain,
should move heaven and earth to ensure that this vote never
happens.
It would be a complete miscarriage of justice to ram
through a vote when Congress hasn’t come close to doing its due
diligence on this issue. And ramming through a vote now when most
military service members — and especially most of the Soldiers and
Marines now doing the fighting and dying on our behalf — don’t
support repeal would be particularly egregious and
wrong.
And I’m sorry, but listening to cosseted Pentagon Generals
and Admirals is a wholly inadequate substitute for taking the time
to listen to the concerns of our frontline troops and
non-commissioned officers.
Senator Collins has it right: The Senate is supposed to be
the world’s greatest deliberative body. Let the Senate do its job.
Let the Senate deliberate. Let it seriously consider the full
ramifications of openly gay service before foisting such a radical
change on the entire U.S. military.
