Senator Harry Reid Says Obama Should Sign Order on Gay Troops, SLDN Also Joins Call for Executive Option
SANTA BARBARA, CA — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has called on President Obama to sign an executive order suspending the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, according to the Advocate magazine.
Referring to the repeal of the ban, Reid told Advocate reporter Kerry Eleveld that, “My hope is that it can be done administratively.” Eleveld added that, “A Democratic aide later clarified that Reid was speaking about the possibility of using an executive order to suspend discharges or perhaps halting enforcement of the policy by changing departmental regulations within the Department of Defense.”
As well, the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) has called on President Obama to sign an executive order. In a letter to the New York Times yesterday, SLDN Executive Director Aubrey Sarvis wrote that, “President Obama should consider all viable options he can take on his own to get rid of this discriminatory law, including issuing a ’stop-loss’ order.” For more than a decade, SLDN has been the largest and most influential group in the country working on the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
The idea of ending the ban by executive order gained momentum after the release last month of a Palm Center study showing that the president has the authority to suspend “don’t ask, don’t tell” via a stroke of the pen. Before that time, many argued that only Congress or the courts could lift the ban on service by openly gay troops.
Others calling for the President to sign an executive order include the New York Times editorial page, the Human Rights Campaign, Knights Out, an organization of gay and lesbian alumni of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center CEO Lorri Jean, and former Clinton White House official Richard Socarides.
Palm Center Director Aaron Belkin said that awareness of the executive option has changed the conversation about “don’t ask, don’t tell” substantially. “Obama used to duck the issue by blaming Congress for the inertia. Now it’s clear that he has unilateral authority to fulfill his campaign promise.”
The Palm Center is a research institute at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The Center uses rigorous social science to inform public discussions of controversial social issues, enabling policy outcomes to be informed more by evidence than by emotion. Its data-driven approach is premised on the notion that the public makes wise choices on social issues when high-quality information is available. For more information, visit www.palmcenter.ucsb.edu.
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/06/senator-harry…
Lt. Dan Choi, Gay Arabic Translator Discharged From Army, Gives Speech
Nearly a hundred protesters assembled Wednesday outside the Beverly Hilton hotel in Beverly Hills, CA where President Obama hosted a Democratic Party fundraiser.
Protest organizers called for Obama to repeal the government’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that exempts openly gay men and women from serving in the military.
Lt. Dan Choi, a West Point graduate and an Arabic translator, was discharged from the Army when he declared he was gay on national television. His conviction that the military’s policy is “a deadly poison” inspired him to lead the protest on Wednesday.
“There is a message that I want to give to Obama,” said Choi. “Stop forcing our soldiers to hide. Let them be free to serve.”
Undeterred by Tuesday’s decision by the California Supreme Court to uphold the ban on gay marriage passed by voters in November, Choi said to the crowd, “We can’t wait for somebody else to give us rights…. if we want rights, we have to fight for it. We have to earn it.” Choi ended his speech the same way it began, chanting, “Love is worth it.”
Pro-peace and anti-torture protesters took part in the demonstration as well. See Lt. Dan Choi, Gay Arabic Translator Discharged From Army, Gives Speech
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/05/lt-dan-choi-g…
New Study Says Obama Can Halt Gay Discharges With Executive Order
Military Law Experts Chart Course to End 16-Year Ban
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — A study released today by a team of military law experts shows that the president has the legal authority to end gay discharges with a single order. The idea of ending the ban by executive order has gained momentum in the wake of news that mission-critical personnel, including Arabic language speaker Dan Choi, continue to be fired under the Obama administration because they’re gay. Congressman Rush Holt endorsed an executive order to end the ban on Saturday and National Security Adviser James Jones was asked about it by George Stephanopoulos on Sunday morning. The report, “How to End Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell: A Roadmap of Political, Legal, Regulatory, and Organizational Steps to Equal Treatment,” is sponsored by the Palm Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Many have argued that only Congress can lift the ban on service by openly gay troops. But according to the study, Congressional approval is not needed. Dr. Aaron Belkin, Director of the Palm Center and a study co-author, said “The administration does not want to move forward on this issue because of conservative opposition from both parties in Congress, and Congress does not want to move forward without a signal from the White House. This study provides a recipe for breaking through the political deadlock, as well as a roadmap for military leaders once the civilians give the green light.”
There are three legal bases to the president’s authority, the report says. First, Congress has already granted to the Commander in Chief the statutory authority to halt military separations under 10 U.S.C. 12305, a law which Congress titled, “Authority of President to suspend certain laws relating to promotion, retirement, and separation.” Under the law, the President may suspend any provision of law relating to promotion, retirement, or separation applicable to any member of the armed forces who the President determines is essential to the national security of the United States during a “period of national emergency.” The statute specifically defines a “national emergency” as a time when “members of a reserve component are serving involuntarily on active duty.”
The second and third bases of presidential authority are contained within the “don’t ask, don’t tell” legislation itself. The law grants to the Defense Department authority to determine the process by which discharges will be carried out, saying they will proceed “under regulations prescribed by the Secretary of Defense, in accordance with procedures set forth in such regulation.” Finally, the law calls for the discharge of service members if a finding of homosexuality is made, but it does not require that such a finding ever be made. According to the study, these provisions mean that the Pentagon, not Congress, has the “authority to devise and implement the procedures under which those findings may be made.”
Diane H. Mazur, Professor of Law at the University of Florida College of Law and another study co-author, said the presidential authority to stop firing gay troops, known as “stop-loss,” is different from the highly unpopular stop-loss policy that the Army recently announced it would phase out. “That use of stop-loss forcibly extends service by those who wish to leave the military,” she said, “whereas suspending discharges for homosexuality would do the opposite: allow ongoing service by those who wish to remain in uniform.” The study says the provisions of the stop-loss law, which are granted by Congress, are “sensible because they give the President authority to suspend laws relating to separation when a national emergency has strained personnel requirements.”
The other four authors of the study in addition to Mazur and Belkin are Dr. Nathaniel Frank, a Palm researcher and author of “Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America”; Dr. Gregory M. Herek, Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Davis; Dr. Elizabeth L. Hillman, Professor of Law at the University of California Hastings College of the Law; and Bridget J. Wilson, who practices law at Rosenstein Wilson & Dean in San Diego. The report will also be published in a forthcoming book, “Department of Defense Social Policy Perspectives 2010,” edited by James Parco, David Levy and Fred Blass.
The Palm Center is a research institute at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The Center uses rigorous social science to inform public discussions of controversial social issues, enabling policy outcomes to be informed more by evidence than by emotion. Its data-driven approach is premised on the notion that the public makes wise choices on social issues when high-quality information is available. For more information, visit www.palmcenter.ucsb.edu * Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/05/new-study-say…
Time To Repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell
During his campaign for the White House, President Obama pledged that he would push to repeal “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” (DADT) — the military’s policy that bars gay men and women from serving openly. Since taking office, however, Obama and other officials serving in his administration have pushed the issue to the back burner. When asked about addressing DADT in March, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, “I feel like we’ve got a lot on our plates right now and let’s push that one down the road a little bit.” Ret. Gen. Jim Jones, Obama’s national security adviser, told the President recently “not to add another controversy to his already-full plate.” On ABC’s This Week, host George Stephanopolous asked Jones if the policy would be overturned. “I don’t know,” he replied. In fact, the White House website recently watered down language on repealing the policy, replacing the administration’s commitment to “repealing” DADT with a commitment to simply “changing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell in a sensible way.” (The more definitive “repeal” language has since been reinserted.) At the same time, Obama has indicated that he remains committed to repealing the policy. Sandy Tsao, an Army officer who told her superiors last January that she is gay, wrote to Obama urging him to act on repealing DADT. Last week, Obama personally responded to Tsao, writing, “I committed to changing our current policy. Although it will take some time to complete. … I intend to fulfill my commitment!”
DADT STILL CLAIMING CASUALTIES: DADT continues to weaken our nation’s military. Last week, the Army sent National Guard Lt. Daniel Choi — a West Point graduate who served in Iraq and is fluent in Arabic — a letter informing him that he is no longer welcome in the U.S. military because he is gay. The Army said it was dismissing Choi for “moral or professional dereliction,” specifically for admitting “publicly that you are a homosexual, which constitutes homosexual conduct. Your actions negatively affected the good order and discipline of the New York Army National Guard.” Choi is one of more than 13,000 U.S. military personnel to be discharged because of DADT. This number includes those with special skills deemed “mission critical,” such as pilots, combat engineers, and linguists like Choi. The Government Accountability Office found in 2005 that the cost of discharging and replacing servicemembers fired because of their sexual orientation during the policy’s first 10 years totaled at least $190.5 million — roughly $20,000 per discharged service member. While DADT cannot be repealed without congressional action, University of California associate professor Aaron Belkin notes that as president, Obama has the authority to suspend enforcement of the policy. Though it is unclear whether Obama will take this route (especially based on Jones’s advice), Choi said on MSNBC last week that he plans to “fully fight” his dismissal “tooth and nail.” “I believe that ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ is wrong, and what we really need to be encouraging soldiers to do is to don’t lie, don’t hide, don’t discriminate, and don’t weaken the military. That’s what we need to be promoting,” he said.
REPEAL DADT: Supporters of the discriminatory DADT often argue that repealing it would weaken the military (despite the fact that Arabic-linguists who are in short supply have been discharged because of it) and fragment unit cohesion. However, a bipartisan study commissioned by the Palm Center at the University of California last year found that “the presence of gays in the military is unlikely to undermine the ability to fight and win.” Choi said that “the biggest thing” he is “angry about” is that the Army claims that his unit suffered “good order and discipline” because he is gay. “That’s a big insult to my unit,” he said. After he came out as gay and before he was discharged, Choi said that “so many people came up to me, my peers, my subordinates, people that outranked me, folks that have been in the Army — and this is an infantry unit, infantry men that — coming up to me and saying, ‘Hey, sir, hey, Lieutenant Choi, we know, and we don’t care. What we care about is that you can contribute to the team.’” Indeed, a December 2006 survey of servicemembers who had served in Iraq or Afghanistan found that 73 percent of those polled were “comfortable with lesbians and gays.” Moreover, the American public doesn’t care either. According to a recent Quinnipiac poll, nearly two-thirds disagreed with the argument that “allowing openly gay men and women to serve in the military would be divisive for the troops and hurt their ability to fight effectively.” Ret. Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Hugh Aitken, who participated in the Palm Center’s study, has criticized Obama’s plans to allow the Pentagon to review the policy before deciding to act on any repeal. “There’s been enough studying throughout the years,” he said. “Creating a new study will not change the facts.”
RIGHT WING STILL OPPOSES A REPEAL: The ultra-conservative Center for Military Readiness (CMR), a group that opposes women and gays serving in combat, is leading an effort against repealing DADT and even trying to block gays from serving in the military altogether. The group’s president, Elaine Donnelly, told Congress last year that having gays serve in the military “sexualizes the atmosphere” because they “engage in passive aggressive behavior.” CMR also tries to muddy the waters with “gay horror stories” from the military, despite having acknowledged that such stories are “very difficult to find.” Prominent members of Congress continue to obstruct as well. When asked about DADT last Sunday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) offered his support for it. “Right now the military is functioning extremely well in very difficult conditions,” he said, adding that “the policy has been working and I think it’s been working well.” Other members of Congress, such as Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) and Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA), disagree. Sestak, himself a retired U.S. Navy rear admiral, said of DADT recently on MSNBC, “We have to correct this. It’s just not right.” “I can remember being out there in command, and someone would come up to you and start to tell you — and you just want to say, no, I don’t want to lose you, you’re too good,” Sestak said.
* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/05/time-to-repea…
Dragging his feet on DADT: First Gay Arabic Linguist To Be Fired Under Obama
Some readers might think it unfair to blame Obama. After all, the president inherited the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law when he took office. As Commander-in-Chief, he has to follow the law. If the law says that the military must fire any service member who acknowledges being gay, that is not Obama’s fault.
Or is it?
A new study, about to be published by a group of experts in military law, shows that President Obama does, in fact, have stroke-of-the-pen authority to suspend gay discharges. The “don’t ask, don’t tell” law requires the military to fire anyone found to be gay or lesbian. But there is nothing requiring the military to make such a finding. The president can simply order the military to stop investigating service members’ sexuality.
An executive order would not get rid of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law, but would take the critical step of suspending its implementation, hence rendering it effectively dead. Once people see gays and lesbians serving openly, legally and without problems, it will be much easier to get rid of the law at a later time.
I spent a day with Dan Choi last month, and he is not someone we want to fire from the military. He loves the armed forces. He served bravely under tough combat conditions in Iraq. His Arabic is excellent, and he used his language skills to diffuse many tough situations and to save lives, both Iraqi and American. All of his unit mates know he is gay, and they have been very supportive of him. But he doesn’t want to live a lie.
Obama has been praised for delaying efforts to get rid of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” and some major gay rights groups are actively lobbying to delay consideration of the issue. They seem to believe that Obama should focus on other gay-rights issues first, and that he shouldn’t spend his precious political capital trying to ram a repeal bill through Congress.”
See First Gay Arabic Linguist To Be Fired Under Obama
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/05/dragging-his-…
