Some babble from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs on "Don't Ask Don't Tell" yesterday on "This Week." I guess we should be comforted to know the military will follow the law if it changes:
In his weekly column on the Sunday shows, Jason Linkins deconstucted the Mullins interview for us:
What about Don't Ask Don't Tell? Mullen hems and haws on whether it should be tossed. The force is "under stress" at the moment, and he wouldn't want to add to that. But the military is always under a certain amount of stress. And let's face it, gays and lesbians are ALREADY SERVING IN THE MILITARY. They just do so whilst playing this parlor room game of looking the other way and pretending they aren't who they are. I'd prefer an all-hands-on-deck approach, and I certainly don't think that discharging another gay translator is going to keep us safer. The rule ought to be done away with. If this is truly the best military force that Mullen has ever commanded, they can handle it.The Obama administration has done a very good job handling so many issues. Clearly, when the President makes a decision, he'll stand by it. But one of my friends captured their handling of gay issues in one word: amateurish. And, it's true. Most of us were willing to give the administration some time to save the economy and end the wars. But, they've brought the scrutiny about gay issues on themselves. We need some leadership here.
Pretty soon, we'll really know where this administration stands. A response is due on GLAD's lawsuit against Section 3 of DOMA by the end of June. Interesting that the defendant is the Office of Personnel Management, which is led by one of Obama's openly gay appointees, John Berry.
The administration will have to decide whether to defend the constitutionality of that law. This is going to be a seminal decision by the Obama administration, which is under no obligation to defend this particular law (hell, the Bush administration felt no obligation to obey any law). As Paul Sousa, who is leading a grassroots effort to convince Obama not to flip-flop on DOMA, noted:
A President has the authority to not defend a Congressional law that is unconstitutional on its face. Past Presidents have exercised this right ranging from Ronald Reagan in the case of INS v. Chadha (1983) to George Bush Sr. in Metro Broadcasting v. Federal Communications Commission (1990) and Bill Clinton in Dickerson v. United States (2000). There is no clearer example of a blatantly unconstitutional law than DOMA, which President Obama himself has called an "abhorrent law," and said that its repeal is "essential."If DOMA is truly abhorrent, it shouldn't be defended in the name of Barack Obama. And our friends in the White House should know that, come this June, the statement we want from Obama is that he's not defending DOMA in the courts. Absent that, don't even bother proclaiming June "Gay Pride Month." It won't matter if you flip flop on DOMA.
Someone is giving this president very bad advice on gay issues. We need to see the Barack Obama of the campaign again -- and he needs to shut down the person or people giving him outdated advice. It's 2009, not 1993 or even 2004. It really is okay for our President to be in favor of civil rights for all Americas.
