Last week, President Obama announced
that 2010 would be the year that he sign a law that would repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, a
“compromise” policy signed by President Clinton to allow gay men and women to
serve in the military, albeit they could never tell anyone they were gay.
According to the New York Times,
President
Obama has referred to the policy as, “just wrong”, and the policy has had
profound effects; the Servicemembers Legal
Defense Network reports that 13,500 service members have been
fired under the law since 1994.
Tomorrow will mark the first Congressional hearing on
the policy in 17 years. The Times reports that at the hearing, “Mr.
Gates and Admiral Mullen will unveil the Pentagon’s initial plans for carrying
out a repeal, which requires an act of Congress. Gay rights leaders say they
expect Mr. Gates to announce in the interim that the Defense Department will not
take action to discharge service members whose sexual orientation is revealed by
third parties or jilted partners, one of the most onerous aspects of the
law.”
Although President Obama’s openness to repealing the
policy is incredibly encouraging after a year of relative silence on LGBT
rights, it may not be enough. A DADT repeal requires an act of Congress, making
tomorrow’s hearing even more important. Hopefully tomorrow will represent the
beginning of an end to Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Stay tuned to the Senate Armed Services Committee’s
(which our Senator
Susan Collins happens to be a member of) website and C-Span for more
information on the hearing, which begins at Noon. The ACLU urges Congress to act swiftly in enacting this important repeal.