Don't Ask Don't Tell.

[Balta1701]

That's a good question. Its a mattery of internal military policy and military code, so its not necessarily a previously legislated regulation. Its also not a financial line item. Therefore, I believe, it may indeed be eligible for an executive order, which Congress would then need to override.

 

But someone more knowledgeable than me would need to confirm all of this, I am not 100% sure.

The President could in fact sign an executive order saying that the policy could not be enforced, just as the military was desegregated by executive order. However, it's more complicated than that.

 

How it works currently is that the blanket ban on homosexuals serving in the military in fact remains on the books as a law passed by Congress. DADT is an executive order level policy that the Clinton administration put on top of that trying to limit how the military enforced that ban; the military was not supposed to ask, and so people in the closet were not supposed to be discharged (which is of course not how it has worked, it has remained a de facto ban in many cases).

 

So, right now we have a fully bigoted "Homosexuals are not allowed to serve in the military" law on the books, with an executive order saying how to enforce that law. Another executive order could be issued to change further how that rule is enforced, but the gays-are-evil law itself would remain on the books, leaving the executive order able to be challenged in court or overturned by President Palin.

[NorthSideSox72]

The President could in fact sign an executive order saying that the policy could not be enforced, just as the military was desegregated by executive order. However, it's more complicated than that.

 

How it works currently is that the blanket ban on homosexuals serving in the military in fact remains on the books as a law passed by Congress. DADT is an executive order level policy that the Clinton administration put on top of that trying to limit how the military enforced that ban; the military was not supposed to ask, and so people in the closet were not supposed to be discharged (which is of course not how it has worked, it has remained a de facto ban in many cases).

 

So, right now we have a fully bigoted "Homosexuals are not allowed to serve in the military" law on the books, with an executive order saying how to enforce that law. Another executive order could be issued to change further how that rule is enforced, but the gays-are-evil law itself would remain on the books, leaving the executive order able to be challenged in court or overturned by President Palin.

OK, so there IS a legislated law underneath DADT. In that case, an XO wouldn't do anything but make it worse.

 

[Y2HH]

Order a code red to take care of situations such as this, the problem will fix itself.

[Balta1701]

Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND) is sounding like a no-vote on the standalone DADT repeal for whatever reason.

 

That would mean that the Dems would need Snowe, Collins, Murkowski, and Brown all voting in favor of it to reach 60, with no other losses.

[Chet Lemon]

I'm watching them debate this on the Senate floor now. McCain just got done speaking and said "soldiers will die" as a result of the repeal, and that "families with gold stars hanging on their windows in rural communities who don't go to elite schools will have to bear a greater sacrifice" than those who are in "liberal bastions" that are "high-fiving" now.

[StrangeSox]

Wow, that's profoundly stupid.

[Chet Lemon]

McCain got the last word on the floor before this vote. "You have Marines in Bethesda with no legs. You have men and women in Walter Reed with no limbs."

[BigSqwert]

My god I hate McCain. What an imbecile.

[Chet Lemon]

The vote has ended. 63 votes broke the filibuster.

[Balta1701]

[lostfan]

McCain's "military expertise" is limited to "need troops to stay in combat zones longer." Not much more than that, frankly. He gets taken seriously as some sort of authority on the subject when he really shouldn't.

[Balta1701]

McCain's "military expertise" is limited to "need troops to stay in combat zones longer." Not much more than that, frankly. He gets taken seriously as some sort of authority on the subject when he really shouldn't.

The more often you call for invasions of countries, the more our legitimate discourse respects you. It doesn't matter if it makes sense. Opposing war is the quickest way to get you excluded as a media figure. It's like with the economy, you call for tax cuts and deficit reduction in back to back statements and you're respectable, you point out the contradiction and you're a dirty hippy.

[Quin]

I'm watching them debate this on the Senate floor now. McCain just got done speaking and said "soldiers will die" as a result of the repeal, and that "families with gold stars hanging on their windows in rural communities who don't go to elite schools will have to bear a greater sacrifice" than those who are in "liberal bastions" that are "high-fiving" now.

 

[lostfan]

The more often you call for invasions of countries, the more our legitimate discourse respects you. It doesn't matter if it makes sense. Opposing war is the quickest way to get you excluded as a media figure. It's like with the economy, you call for tax cuts and deficit reduction in back to back statements and you're respectable, you point out the contradiction and you're a dirty hippy.

You should write an editorial for the NYT (the opposite of everything you believe) and I'm sure they'd publish it.

[Balta1701]

You should write an editorial for the NYT (the opposite of everything you believe) and I'm sure they'd publish it.

None of my parents are major media figures. I'm clearly unqualified to be a writer.

[bmags]

It's official. A great day. Thanks Harry Reid.

[HuskyCaucasian]

If someone else's sexuality will adversely effect your ability to fight side-by-side with them in a life or death combat situation, then you shouldn't enter the military.

Edited December 18, 2010 by Athomeboy_2000

[lostfan]

If someone else's sexuality will adversely effect your ability to fight side-by-side with them in a life or death combat situation, then you shouldn't enter the military.

The military (especially the "grunts") are going to have a huge problem with this at first but eventually when they see that they aren't being attacked in the shower by cross-dressing rapists who inject them with the gay virus or whatever the f*** kind of crazy s*** they're worried about, they'll forget about it.

[Balta1701]

In case anyone wondered what the American Family Association's response was:

Close

Bryan Fischer: Benedict Arnold Republicans destroy military and our national security

Saturday, December 18, 2010 1:08 PM

 

By Bryan Fischer

 

We are now stuck with sexual deviants serving openly in the U.S. military because of turncoat Republican senators.

 

(Dictionary definition of “deviant”: “departing from usual or accepted standards, esp. in social or sexual behavior.” “Deviant” is not name calling, it is truth-telling.)

 

The Saturday morning cloture vote on the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was the critical vote. It needed 60 votes and got 63, because of Republican renegades Scott Brown, Mark Kirk, George Voinovich, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe. If these traitors to national defense had voted in line with the Republican Party platform, the cloture motion would have received just 57 votes and would have failed.

 

The final vote on the bill itself, requiring just 51 votes, was a mere formality after the cloture vote.

 

Had the cloture vote failed, we would still have sane moral and sexual standards governing military personnel policy. But sadly those days are gone, perhaps forever.

 

The GOP platform is plain and unambiguous:

 

“Esprit and cohesion are necessary for military effectiveness and success on the battlefield. To protect our servicemen and women and ensure that America's Armed Forces remain the best in the world, we affirm the timelessness of those values, the benefits of traditional military culture, and the incompatibility of homosexuality with military service.” (emphasis mine)

 

For those who say the Republican Party does not need a litmus test for its candidates, you just lost the argument and frittered away the strength of the U.S. military at the same time.

 

The armies of other nations have allowed gays to serve openly in the military. The reason they could afford to do this is simple: they could allow homosexuals to serve in their military because we didn’t allow them to serve in ours.

 

They knew they could count on the strength, might, power, and cohesion of the U.S. military to intervene whenever and wherever necessary to pull their fannies out of the fire and squash the forces of tyranny wherever they raised their ugly heads around the world.

 

Those days are now gone. We will no longer be able to bail out these other emasculated armies because ours will now be feminized and neutered beyond repair, and there is no one left to bail us out. We have been permanently weakened as a military and as a nation by these misguided and treasonous Republican senators, and the world is now a more dangerous place for us all.

 

It’s past time for a litmus test for Republican candidates. This debacle shows what happens when party leaders are careless about the allegiance of candidates to the fundamental conservative principles expressed in the party’s own platform.

 

Character-driven officers and chaplains will eventually be forced out of the military en masse, potential recruits will stay away in droves, and re-enlistments will eventually drop like a rock.

 

The draft will return with a vengeance and out of necessity. What young man wants to voluntarily join an outfit that will force him to shower naked with males who have a sexual interest in him and just might molest him while he sleeps in his bunk?

 

This isn’t a game, and the military should never be used, as is now being done, for massive social re-engineering. The new Marine motto: “The Few, the Proud, the Sexually Twisted.” Good luck selling that to strong young males who would otherwise love to defend their country. What virile young man wants to serve in a military like that?

 

If the president and the Democrats wanted to purposely weaken and eventually destroy the United States of America, they could not have picked a more efficient strategy to make it happen.

 

Rarely can you point to a moment in time when a nation consigned itself to the scrap heap of history. Today, when the Senate normalized sexual perversion in the military, was that moment for the United States. If historians want a fixed marker pointing to the instant the United States sealed its own demise, they just found it.

I really took a perverse pleasure in reading that.

[lostfan]

The armies of other nations have allowed gays to serve openly in the military. The reason they could afford to do this is simple: they could allow homosexuals to serve in their military because we didn’t allow them to serve in ours.

:

 

Yeah because the fact that we didn't allow gays to serve in our military (NEWS FLASH, THERE HAVE BEEN GAYS IN THE f***ING MILITARY FOR DECADES BUT THEY'VE JUST BEEN LYING ABOUT IT, IN OTHER WORDS NOTHING HAS CHANGED) is why our military is powerful... it's got nothing to do with massive budgets compared to the Europeans' miniscule budgets, it has nothing to do with sophisticated, devastating weaponry and training, etc. No it's because we make men get out of the military if we find out they like penis

[bmags]

I'm choosing to focus on the senators who decided to right a wrong than the people who tried to perpetrate it. This was really amazing, that two weeks ago, six months ago, this was dead in the water, and then in a rapid-fire four day span it's here. Once again, great job Harry Reid.

[mr_genius]

I'm choosing to focus on the senators who decided to right a wrong than the people who tried to perpetrate it. This was really amazing, that two weeks ago, six months ago, this was dead in the water, and then in a rapid-fire four day span it's here. Once again, great job Harry Reid.

 

it was part of the deal for the upper tax bracket tax cuts. not officially, but is was.

[lostfan]

So on the Facebook page for the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America they announced DADT repeal and said they applaud it (IAVA supports gays in the military) the first comment was "Glad I'm not in this military anymore." My first thought was "me too, my friend, but not because of the gays..."

 

I ended up just commenting "y'all will get over it and in a few years nobody will care anymore." I'd rather serve alongside a gay soldier who goes about his business and does his job than any of them 10 times out of 10.

Edited December 19, 2010 by lostfan

[Heads22]

We all know gays in the military are conscientious of federal legislation, and will wait until all the i's have been dotted, and the t's crossed before they enact their plan of "campifying" the armed forces.

[whitesoxfan101]

I really don't understand how anybody could be against repealing DADT to be honest. Glad it's gone, and glad Mark Kirk was on the right side of this debate.