Do It

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I can't say I disagree with some of the criticisms of the DADT compromise reached yesterday between the White House and Congress. As Americablog notes, there are loopholes that might delay or even prevent the repeal from going into effect.

But here's the thing: It was us, has always been us, who have been making the far more dominant argument that a repeal bill has to be passed this year -- now -- or it will fall between the cracks of politics in the Congress That May Come.

Politics is hard, and few domestic issues have more complicated political dynamics than those related to sexual orientation. Yes, gay issues are nothing compared to health care reform, but on that issue, the country was pretty evenly divided (depending on how you choose to slice and dice the numbers); on DADT repeal, we've got 70-plus percent of the country in our camp, and still have to drag a couple of legislators across the finish line to get a majority, even in the House.

The politics of the market are nothing compared to the residue of misunderstanding that still fouls some corners of the public debate over lesbians and gay men. That is the cold, hard reality, and I, for one, can't wish it away.

In that context, anything that removes a vile and offensive law from our books, and gives this administration the chance to act in good faith strikes me as not only acceptable but praiseworthy. Yes, implementation of the law was odious and insulting to the thousands of good men and women who suffered through it, but its very existence is an even worse insult to every lesbian and gay man in the nation, and every heterosexual as well. Removing it from our law is worth some risk.

The compromise will move the action away from Congress, where it never should have been in the first place, and put it squarely in the administration, who will no longer have Congress to hide behind. That strikes me as defensible at the least, and much more consistent with the way the rules for the military should be constructed than DADT's politicized discrimination.

I say let's remove this stain from our statutes now, while we have the chance.

3 Comments for “Do It”

  1. posted by Grant on

    David – agreed and amen. In politics (especially these days), to coin an overused adage: let’s not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

  2. posted by Tom on

    The compromise will move the action away from Congress, where it never should have been in the first place, and put it squarely in the administration, who will no longer have Congress to hide behind. That strikes me as defensible at the least, and much more consistent with the way the rules for the military should be constructed than DADT’s politicized discrimination.

    I would have preferred that the RAND study be completed before Congress acted — it seems to me that it would have diminished the ability of social conservatives to use DADT repeal as yet another grounds for FUD — but so long as the military is in control of implementation, I can live with it.

  3. posted by Jorge on

    I read the words “Compromise on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and I don’t have a good reaction: “Isn’t compromise how we got into this mess in the first place?”

    But with a demand that a repeal happen, regardless of who’s in power in Congress, I see few other realistic ways to satisfy me.

    With most Republicans being unsatisfied with the timing of a vote, I believe we must prepare for failure. There is a risk that if a vote to repeal DADT comes to the floor, it will alienate vote Republicans enough that, if it fails, we will be in a worse position to repeal DADT then if a vote did not come forward before Nov. 2010 in the first place. This is easily a risk worth taking, but I think we should try to mitigate that risk by putting wishy-washy Republicans on record as being wishy-washy. Would they support a repeal following a favorable report by the Defense Department? Keep a Plan B: the fight does not end and we will hold the John McCains to their word.

    So I read the amendment and the link once. I don’t agree with the criticisms. President Obama is a Democrat. We do not have the support necessary to win an immediate repeal in Congress, but we have written the writing on the wall. It places all of the political pressure on the President.

    Also, unlike the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell compromise, the compromise does not create a new equilibrium. It changes nothing. It does nothing that makes people think gays have more rights. Instead it creates a situation that is even more unstable politically–and in our favor–by making it easier to end the policy.

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