Will gay lt. colonel be saved by policy review? AirForceTimes.com
A gay Air Force officer is hoping his 18-year career will be saved by a review of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy ordered by Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach, an F-15E Strike Eagle weapons systems officer, is facing separation after a civilian acquaintance outed him to the Air Force more than a year ago.
After a months-long investigation, Fehrenbach is facing an honorable discharge for violating the ban on homosexual behavior and damaging the good order and discipline of the Air Force.
The review, conducted by the department’s General Counsel’s office, will determine whether there is “flexibility” in how the law is applied, Gates told reporters June 30.
Specifically, Gates cited service members outed by someone else.
“Do we need to be driven when the information to take action on somebody, if we get that information from somebody who may have vengeance in mind or blackmail or somebody who has been jilted,” Gates said.
Today’s regulations require commanders to investigate allegations brought by anyone. Once a commander determines that a service member is gay, there is little legal leeway in stopping the discharge process.
See Will gay lt. colonel be saved by policy review?
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Gates Plan May Be Beginning of the End of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — In the wake of yesterday’s unexpected Pentagon announcement about gays in the military, experts say the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy may be on the brink of irreversible change that would speed up its demise. After speaking with President Obama last week, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has asked military lawyers to explore how to modify enforcement of the policy in ways that are “more flexible until the law is changed.” The President Monday reiterated his intention to end discrimination against gay troops, saying he is working with Congress and the military to do so.
Christopher Neff, political director of the Palm Center, said the remarks by Secretary Gates marked the first time the Defense Secretary has made clear that the Pentagon is onboard with the President’s determination to lift the ban. “‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ is a package — both a law and a policy — that hasn’t been penetrated for fifteen years,” Neff said. “This is a crack in humpty dumpty, and it gets the ball rolling for a political solution since it gives cover to lawmakers who have been waiting for a nod from the Pentagon.”
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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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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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White House Sets Record Straight on Gay Ban
SANTA BARBARA, Calif — The following was released today by the Michael D. Palm Center:
Asked today if the White House would consider halting gay discharges by presidential authority, press secretary Robert Gibbs said it would not stop the firing of gay troops. That said, Gibbs insisted that the President believes that the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy “isn’t working for our national interests” and that he “will work with the Joints Chiefs of Staff, the administration and with Congress” to change the policy.
In recent weeks, the President’s national security team has sent mixed messages. Defense Secretary Robert Gates spoke of what action would occur “if” the policy were repealed, suggesting it may not be; and national security advisor James Jones said this weekend he was not sure if the ban would be lifted.
Scholars said that Gibbs’ comments today indicate new leadership from the White House in reassuring the public that “don’t ask, don’t tell” will be repealed. Nathaniel Frank, senior research fellow at the Palm Center, said that “today’s remarks appear to send a signal to any member of the administration who questions the President’s resolve.”
At the same time, Gibbs’ statement raised questions by gay rights experts about why President Obama, who continues to say he wants the ban terminated, would preside over ongoing discharges when he has authority to end them by executive order. The Palm Center yesterday released a report by a team of scholars and legal experts showing that the president has statutory authority to halt discharges immediately.
Richard Socarides, who worked in the Clinton administration as special assistant to the president on LGBT issues, said that the current president should exercise the short-term options he has to end the ban. “I have long supported and advocated a moratorium on further discharges,” he said today, “and I think it’s well within the president’s discretionary authority to do that immediately.” Socarides said an executive order halting discharges would be consistent with Obama’s stated belief that the policy should end.
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.
Website: http://www.palmcenter.ucsb.edu
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Wyoming murder “really a hoax,” congresswoman
As Congress approved legislation to expand the legal application of hate crimes, cosponsor Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., proclaimed on Wednesday that “We have
declared America to be a hate-free zone.”
It may not be that easy.
During debate on the legislation, a Republican congresswoman from North Carolina questioned the decade-old Laramie, Wyoming murder that galvanized a national drive to impose penalties on hate-driven crimes.
Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., used the word “hoax” to describe the killing of Matthew Shepard, a young gay man who was tied crucifixion-style to a fence, repeatedly pistol whipped and left for dead. He later died in a local hospital.
“. . . We know that young man was killed in the commitment of a robbery,” Foxx told the House. “It wasn’t because he was gay This — the bill was named for him, (the) hate crime bill was named for him, but it’s really a hoax that continues to be used as an excuse for passing these bills.”
The “hoax” argument is directly contradicted by court testimony by girlfriends of the two men who murdered Shepard. Both girlfriends testified that the killers set out to find and rob a gay man. They befriended Shepard in a bar. The slight Shepard asked them to give him a ride home.
Foxx was not alone in her heavy prose. “Pedophiles and other bizarre sex orientations given protection by Congress,” headlined a release by the Traditional Values Coalition.
The legislation extends to women, gays and the disabled provisions of America’s existing hate crimes law. The law already singles out for special punishment violent crime based on race, religion and/or national origin of the victim.
Asked about Rep. Foxx’s “hoax” allegation, McDermott replied with a Latin maxim: “Res ipsa loquiter.” Translated, it means: The matter speaks for itself.
See Wyoming murder “really a hoax,” congresswoman Seattle Post Intelligencer
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Experts Question Obama Plan to Consult Military on Gays, Consultations Could Backfire As In 1993
Some experts are questioning President Obama’s effort to consult with military leaders as he plans to repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. The AP reported today that Obama “has begun consulting his top defense advisers on how to lift a ban.” But Dr. Nathaniel Frank, author of a new book on the policy, says that “Last time political leaders consulted with the military on this issue, the brass still claimed they had not been consulted, and the result was a disaster. Remember, Clinton insisted he was consulting on how, not whether, to lift the ban, and even so, we got ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’”
Frank’s new book presents never-reported evidence indicating that military officers who wrote the blueprint for “don’t ask, don’t tell” based the policy “on nothing” but their “own prejudices and fears.” The book, “Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America,” which was released today, contains the largest collection of evidence showing openly gay service does not undermine military effectiveness. Frank is Senior Research Fellow at the Palm Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Last month, a retired Marine Corp General questioned a similar Obama administration proposal to study “don’t ask, don’t tell.” “There’s been enough studying throughout the years,” said General Hugh Aitken. “Creating a new study will not change the facts.”
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/2009/03/experts-quest…
Sorry, right-wingers, but King David was gay
by Rabbi Ben Kamin, Spiritual Life Examiner
It was years ago that I heard a particularly poignant segment of the Hebrew Scripture chanted in the synagogue—the story, in the Book of Samuel—of the powerful boyhood friendship between Jonathan and David. Jonathan was the emotional son of King Saul; David, the future king, was his companion and fast friend. Their bond, described without restraint in the Bible, was robust: Jonathan declares to David: “Tomorrow is the new moon, and you will be missed, because your seat will be empty.”
It’s hard to let pass the unfolding passionate relationship between these two young scriptural heroes. The romantic tension they shared was reinforced by the fierce and jealous hostility felt by King Saul against David; the paranoid monarch once even threw a spear at the lad. Jonathan so adored David that he eschewed his role as prince and gave his heart freely to his friend. His father’s disapproval did not repress his loyalty and devotion to his amour.
Granted, there are edicts in the earlier Book of Leviticus forbidding homosexual love; this is what makes the Jonathan-David affair so remarkable. Here is an intense saga of love, rivalry, and Oedipal complexes all being driven by the force of homosexual tenderness. There are deep implications of Jonathan feeling “empty” when David’s chair was vacant.
The Bible does not exactly mince words about the whole thing. In First Samuel, Chapter 20, it describes an outdoor rendezvous between the two boys: “David arose out of the place…and fell on his face to the ground, and bowed three times; and they kissed one another, and wept one with another, until David exceeded.”
Until David “exceeded?” This is interpreted by some biblical critics as an explanation of David’s expressive weeping—that is, he ran out of tears. However, the literal translation of the Hebrew is, unequivocally, “until David enlarged.” One can have no illusions what the Bible is describing in this particular instance. See Sorry, right-wingers, but King David was gay
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Marine General Questions Obama Plan to Study Gay Ban, Scholars Concur that More Study is Unnecessary and Could Have Political Costs
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — A retired Brigadier General for the U.S. Marine Corps has questioned the Obama administration’s plan to form a Pentagon commission to study “don’t ask, don’t tell.” “There’s been enough studying throughout the years,” said General Hugh Aitken. “Creating a new study will not change the facts.” Aitken participated in a comprehensive 2008 review of the policy which found that there is no evidence showing that openly gay service would harm the military, and a great deal of evidence showing it would not.
According to a February 1st Boston Globe report, the Obama administration has decided not to move forward on repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell” until the Pentagon can “undertake a detailed study of how a change in the policy would affect the military.” This may not happen for several months or longer, says the Globe article.
But scholars echoed General Aitken’s argument. Dr. Nathaniel Frank, senior research fellow at the Palm Center and author of the forthcoming book, Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America, said he has reviewed “all of the evidence on gays in the military, and there is simply no question about whether or not a policy change would undermine unit cohesion. It would not.”
Dr. Laura Miller, a well-respected military sociologist who co-authored a study on gays in the military with the late Charles Moskos, author of the gay ban, said, “you don’t need a commission to tell you that you need to retain every able, trained, experienced and productive member at a time when both the stakes and the manpower needs are high.”
Dr. Gary Gates, a UCLA scholar who has authored a number of studies on gays in the military, agreed that “the proposal to study ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ yet again seems unnecessary. Extensive scholarly research already shows that allowing the 65,000 gays and lesbians currently in uniform to serve openly will not harm the military in any way.”
Professor Diane Mazur, a former Air Force officer who teaches at the University of Florida and who has published widely on gays in the military, added that “every research study published over the last fifteen years has concluded that military readiness is not harmed — and may be strengthened — when all qualified Americans can serve and no one has to live in secrecy.”
Relevant research includes an extensive 1993 study by the RAND corporation as well as two official military studies: a 1989 study by the Defense Personnel Security Research Center and the Navy’s 1957 Crittenden report. It also includes numerous academic studies published in leading military journals such as International Security, Armed Forces and Society, and Parameters, the official journal of the U.S. Army War College. Most recently, a bi-partisan panel of retired flag officers, which included General Aitken, released a report last year which found that “don’t ask, don’t tell” was unnecessary and harmful to the military. All these studies reached the same conclusion: that allowing open gay service would not undermine the military.
Frank’s new book, which is being called the definitive story of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” chronicles the history of the 1993 debates over gay service and shows that, even then, the word “study” quickly became code for “delay and kill.” “Sam Nunn said any review of the gay ban should begin with a ‘Pentagon study’,” said Frank. “Colin Powell said the president should move cautiously and ’study’ the issue; Bob Dole said the president should appoint a ’study commission’; and ultimately President Clinton called for a 6-month ’study’ period. The result was ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ which has made no one happy. I think there’s a lesson here.”
Dr. Aaron Belkin, director of the Palm Center and a nationally recognized expert on gay service, said that President Obama has stroke-of-the-pen authority to suspend gay discharges because, while the law mandates discharge if a “finding” is made of homosexual conduct, nothing in the law requires that such a finding be made. Given CNN’s December 2008 poll showing 81 percent public approval for open gay service, Belkin said, Obama should not hesitate to end the policy by executive order.
“Ironically, Obama’s careful effort to avoid Clinton’s mistakes could cause him to repeat them,” he said. “When President Clinton called a time-out to study the situation, that allowed opposition forces time to rally. In some cases, the Pentagon just needs to be told what to do.” Belkin said he has been told privately by top military officials that in cases like this one, they often prefer to be told what to do. “They know it’s the right step,” he said, “and sometimes they’d rather it be made for them.”
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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Inviting Warren fits Obama’s inclusive ideals
By ANTHONY B. ROBINSON
GUEST COLUMNIST
SHOULD RICK WARREN be giving the invocation at Barack Obama’s inauguration?
You might think that after the months-long saga surrounding Obama’s former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, the president-elect would do whatever he could to avoid further pastor-politics dramas.
Apparently not. Inviting Warren, pastor of Saddleback Community Church in Orange County, Calif., and popular author of the “Purpose-Driven Life” series of books, has touched off a controversy.
During the Jeremiah Wright controversy I suggested that Wright needed to be seen within the context of the black church experience. In a similar way, it seems important to set Rick Warren within the context of evangelical Christianity in the U.S.
Warren embodies what many see as the new evangelical spirit. As an evangelical Christian, he is clear about his commitment to Christ and about conversion as the path. But Warren has parted company with fundamentalism and its political arm, the religious right, over its mean-spirited approach to politics and its fixation on abortion and homosexuality as the be-all and end-all.
Warren has emerged as an evangelical who puts both mouth and money on the line for AIDS prevention and care, issues of poverty and the global gap between rich and poor, and climate change. For this evolution Warren has incurred the wrath of those on the religious right. In the larger scheme of things, Warren represents an important shift in the influential evangelical world. This shift meant Obama captured support among young evangelicals who care about poverty, social justice and climate change.
While people on the fundamentalist religious right are incensed that Warren would agree to take part in the inauguration and give his blessing to a president who supports choice on abortion, folks on the other side are ticked off by Obama’s choice of the bearded, aloha shirt-clad pastor from Southern California because Warren has questions about gay marriage.
While Warren was not out in front on this, he supported Proposition 8 in California’s recent election, a measure that took back what California courts had granted, the right of gay people to marry. Warren is concerned about “redefining the 5,000-year-old institution of marriage,” which he sees as a foundation of human civilization. This has elicited charges that Warren has “defamed” gays. Others tagged Obama himself a bigot for daring to invite Warren.
Here’s what I think. Obama is doing what he said he would do, namely, reach across the culture-war divides, across the polarized minefield of American political life, to invite to the party someone who doesn’t agree with him on every issue. Some argue that Obama lacks the courage of his convictions on full inclusion of gays. It seems to me, rather, that Obama is remaining true to his convictions of a post-partisan, nonideological approach and style. After all, inclusion doesn’t really mean much if you include only those who already totally agree with you.
This is, remember, the man who wrote “The Audacity of Hope.”
“I believe any attempt by Democrats to pursue a more sharply partisan and ideological strategy misapprehends the moment we are in,” he wrote. And, “it’s precisely the pursuit of ideological purity, the rigid orthodoxy and the sheer predictability of our current political debate that keeps us from finding new ways to meet the challenges we face as a country.” Inviting megachurch pastor Warren, who is also challenging old orthodoxies, fits these sentiments.
Personally, I can think of people I would prefer to Rick Warren for the role of inaugural prayer-giver. But Obama’s choice seems to me consistent with what he has said and his operative philosophy. Moreover, the attempt to reach out to more centrist evangelicals, whom Warren represents, is important. To claim that because Warren has questions about gay marriage means that he’s a bigot or that he has “defamed” gay people is a stretch.
Finally, it is important to note that Rick Warren is not being asked to take up a cabinet post or otherwise make or administer policy. He’s been asked to give a prayer. My hunch is that if this country has a prayer, it will be because we do find a path beyond ideological purity and rigid orthodoxy.
In closing, a personal note: I lost one of my most faithful readers last Sunday when 95-year-old Jim Jambor of Olympia died. Jim watched for this column, “the Saturday Special” as he called it, and seldom failed to comment. We’ll miss you, Jim!
See Articles of Faith: Inviting Warren fits Obama’s inclusive ideals
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