Mullen lawyers: Delay overturning of gay ban (xpost from GD)

[unhappycamper]

Mullen lawyers: Delay overturning of gay ban
By Anne Gearan - The Associated Press
Posted : Thursday Jan 14, 2010 6:35:57 EST

WASHINGTON — Lawyers for the nation’s senior military officer are recommending a delay of at least a year in beginning the process to repeal the ban on openly gay military service, which could push a decision by Congress to the middle of the next presidential election.

Other advisers at the Pentagon, however, argue that lifting the ban would not cause unmanageable problems or divisions among the uniformed military, according to two U.S. officials. They discussed internal conversations about the ban on condition of anonymity.

“Now is not the time,” the in-house legal counsel for Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote recently in a memorandum obtained by The Associated Press. “The importance of winning the wars we are in, along with the stress on the force, our body of knowledge and the number of unknowns, demand that we act with deliberation.”

Mullen received the conflicting advice this month about whether to move quickly to lift the 1993 ban, and it is not clear what he will recommend to President Obama. Although allowing gays to serve openly in the military was one of Obama’s campaign promises, the issue was put on a back burner during his first year in office. Some liberal supporters and several congressional Democrats are pushing for action.

Mullen and other Pentagon leaders have quietly begun a new push to build consensus for the timing of a repeal that Mullen and others assume will come eventually. Strong opposition to swift repeal remains among top uniformed military leaders.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2010/01/ap_military_gay_ban_011410/

[sui generis]

1. it's never a good time. Unfortunately, we're in there now.

What a bunch of bullshit -

I'd like to ask Mullen on a polygraph if he can honestly say he fully supports overturning the ban later. Bet I know what his answer is.

[RetiredTrotskyite]

2. This is Really Getting Old...

Here we are to 2010 and no nearer to a resolution of DADT or DOMA than we were when Obama took office. The delaying tactics are getting very, very old. I'm sure a lot of the troops didn't like it when the Armed Forces were integrated, either. Guess what? THEY GOT OVER IT! There are stories of WWII vets who knew gay service members and you know what? They didn't care! The only thing they cared about is if their fellow soldiers had their back when it counted. The troops will get over having GLBT service members as well.

[Toasterlad]

3. Without DADT, Obama Wouldn't Have a Carrot to Dangle In Front of Gay Voters in 2012.

Expect him to do everything in his power to delay this.

[Raster]

4. Here's a thought: why don't they ask the ordinary enlisted men and women what they think?

My gut tells me the enlisted men and women won't give a shit, while the bigoted senior military officers will.

[Touchdown]

5. They already have.

http://www.advocate.com/Politics/Straight_Guys_Tell/

...I swallow my dread again and give my spiel, but as I’m talking, he just nods and smiles, and in an aw-shucks Midwestern accent he relates the tale of how he left the farm and saw a lot more of Paree than he had bargained for: “At first when I got in, I could not believe how open the homosexuals were. But it doesn’t matter. I had one in my unit that was an officer, and we would joke around with him and say, ‘Hey, you pipe smoker,’ and he’d say, ‘So what? You got a problem with that?’ Everybody likes him. He’s good at his job. So what’s the big deal?”

He too shakes my hand and thanks me when we’re done, and I wonder how I managed to get two flukes in a row. For the next interview I decide to look for somebody who might be tougher. But this one -- tight striped T-shirt, late 20s, and handsome in an unapproachable, stone-faced way -- says, “A couple of the best soldiers I’ve known have been gay. One of them got drunk and got in a fight one night. He cleaned the guy’s clock and looked down at him and said, in front of a bunch of people, ‘How does it feel to get your ass beat by a faggot?’ He got thrown out over that remark. Which is stupid. It made me angry the way that was handled, because if a soldier is gay, it makes no difference to me. It’s a personal decision, and if that’s their decision and they still do their job, and the same policies governing sexual harassment and fraternization apply to them, then there is no reason for this policy to exist.”

The guy with the spectacles and the one with the stone face, like several other soldiers I spoke with, also said they saw one major problem with allowing gays to serve openly. They weren’t sure how a gay guy could make it through basic training, a process designed to beat weakness and even individuality out of new recruits and mold them into soldiers whose first thought is to obey.

No one was able to articulate very clearly why being openly gay would not fly in training, but the general idea seems to be that known gays might stand out as targets for hazing, which could make it difficult for them to bond with other soldiers during boot camp. “I think if the gays could wait to come out until they got through training, then everything would be fine,” one said.

More at link.