Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Slick Strategy on Gays in the Military   [Elaine Donnelly]

Is Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama consulting with Bill Clinton?  Could be. Recent statements from Obama appear to suggest moderation on the issue of homosexuals in the military, even though his goals remain quite extreme.  In 1992, presidential candidate Bill Clinton downplayed his campaign promise to lift the ban on homosexuals in the military, and then-President George H. W. Bush allowed him to do so.  Clinton’s strategy worked.  Will Republican candidate John McCain allow Senator Obama to play the same game?

 

On September 18, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported on Barack Obama’s statements to Philadelphia's Gay News, indicating that he “would not proceed unilaterally” in fulfilling his promise to do away with the “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” policy for gays in the military.  Instead, the Democratic presidential candidate said that he would “work through a step-by-step process with the military brass.”

 

“ ‘The reason,’ Obama said, ‘is because I want to make sure that when we revert [sic] 'don't ask, don't tell,' it's gone through a process and we've built a consensus or at least a clarity of that, of what my expectations are, so that it works.’ ”  President Obama’s “expectations” of the Joint Chiefs would translate as follows: “Now hear this—do it my way.”

 

The Obama/Biden website confirms Obama’s intent to allow homosexuals to serve openly in the military, and Obama’s written statement to the gay-activist Human Rights Campaign endorsed legislation to repeal the 1993 law.   If Congress decides to repeal the 1993 law, which is constantly mislabeled “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the Pentagon’s new policy would force servicemembers to cohabit with homosexuals in all combat communities, including Army and Marine infantry, Special Operations Forces, and submarines, 24/7, with career-killing “zero tolerance” of anyone who disagrees.

 

Downplaying all that, Senator Obama recently answered a question from the Veterans of Foreign Wars, “Would you retain or repeal ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell?' ”   Obama replied, “We need to revisit the current policy on gays in the military to ensure it helps accomplish national defense goals.”  But that statement belies the fact that there is no “national security” argument for gays in the military.  The activist campaign to impose a gay agenda on our uniformed men and women assigns higher priority to “equal opportunity” goals, regardless of the negative impact on discipline, morale, and readiness in the volunteer force.

 

In 1992, Bill Clinton announced during his campaign that he would reverse the Pentagon’s longstanding policy that homosexuality is incompatible with military service, and allow homosexuals to serve openly in the military.  After President Bush 41 failed to confront this issue during the campaign, the newly elected President Clinton surprised the American people by trying to make good on his campaign promise early in 1993.

 

Congress wisely studied Clinton’s proposal, dubbed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and ultimately rejected it as unworkable.  Instead, veto-proof majorities in both houses decided to codify the Defense Department regulations that had been in place since 1981.  The resulting law (Section 654, Title 10), which Senator McCain voted for and courts have upheld as constitutional several times, clearly states that homosexuals are not eligible for military service.

 

Members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and high-ranking officers aspiring to join that elite group, are unlikely to oppose a President Obama on this issue, lest they be “Peter Pace’d” by the U.S. Senate.  (In 2007 Marine general Peter Pace was denied a second term as chairman of the Joint Chiefs because he stated his personal views on homosexual conduct and adultery in the military.)

 

It is possible that military officers might try to “work with” President Obama by proposing that gays be admitted into some communities but not others, or that homosexual conduct be banned on military bases but not elsewhere.  Congress recognized in 1993 that none of these incremental proposals would be workable or defensible in court.  Members rejected these options and Bill Clinton’s convoluted  “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”  proposal, but he imposed the concept on the military anyway in the form of administrative regulations that can (and should) be repealed at any time.

 

Now Obama is playing the same “wink-wink” game—reassuring his base while trying to mislead people who don’t agree with his radicalism on the issue of gays in the military.  It's the slickest thing since Slick Willy. The only question now is whether John McCain will let Obama get away with it.

10/07 04:33 PMShare