Barack Obama Not Ready to Repeal Military's Ban on Gays and Lesbians

by Michael Jones · 2008-11-21 09:47:00 UTC
Topics:

Barack"Yes we can! Yes we can! Yes we can!"

Lift the ban on gays and lesbians serving in the military?

"Uh...no, not yet! No, not yet! No, not yet!"

Not that Obama needs a new rally chant, but there's word out today that President-Elect Obama will not move quickly to erase the U.S. military's ban on gays and lesbians serving in the Armed Forces. The Washington Times (shudder) has the juice:

President-Elect Barack Obama will not move for months, and perhaps not until 2010, to ask Congress to end the military's decades-old ban on open homosexuals in the ranks, two people who have advised the Obama transition team on this issue say.

I can't say I'm surprised by this. Yes, Obama promised on the campaign trail to repeal the ban. But Obama is also a very pragmatic, cautious politician, and I think he feels that one of President-Elect Bill Clinton's biggest mistakes in 1992 was opening this can of worms before even taking his oath of office. According to the Times' article, Obama wants to work at building consensus among his Joint Chiefs of Staff before issuing a repeal -- which, sadly, could come as late as 2010, if it comes at all.

One would think that building consensus to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," should be pretty easy. More than 100 military officials have signed pleas urging that the discriminatory policy be repealed. Leading the way on this issue have been two organizations - the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN), which represents many of the folks who have been discharged from the military because of their sexual orientation; and the Palm Center in California, a think tank that researches and promotes dialogue on a host of controversial social issues, including gays and lesbians in the military.

Is this wise of Obama? The short answer is...probably. The long answer is that at a time when LGBT rights supporters are frustrated by gay marriage bans, gay adoption bans, and increased threat from conservative religious groups, this is just one more delay in what should be a common sense issue. The military has discharged more than 12,000 gay servicemembers since "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" went into effect - many of whom were the cream of the crop of their field. That this policy will continue for another day, yet potentially another two years, may be pragmatic...but it certainly isn't just.

Michael Jones is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.
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