Ask the Experts : What obstacles will the Obama administration need to overcome in order to repeal the current ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy?
President Obama vowed in his State of the Union address to end the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ policy so that gay men and lesbian women have the right to openly serve in the U.S. military.
‘This year, I will work with Congress and our military to finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are. … It’s the right thing to do,’ Obama said during his State of the Union address Jan. 27.
For 17 years, the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ policy has mandated that if a gay man or lesbian women wanted to serve in the military, he or she must keep his or her sexual orientation a secret. If it were discovered, the policy says a commanding officer must immediately discharge the soldier.
Sixty-nine percent of adults favor allowing openly gay men and lesbian women to serve in the military, according to a 2009 Gallup poll.
Hearings have already begun to discuss repealing the current law, according to an article Tuesday in The New York Times.
The Daily Orange asked the experts: What obstacles will the Obama administration need to overcome in order to repeal the current ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy?
Meet the Expert: Andrew London, professor of sociology
‘I think the Democrats have a large majority in the House and the Senate. As long as they can get most of the Democrats, even if it was a strict party-line vote, it would pass. I think most of the Democratic Party has been in support of this. I think it’s pretty clear cut that the Congress is going to pass this; the president is going to push this forward and meet one of his campaign promises.’
Meet the Expert: Adrea Jaehnig, director of the LGBT Resource Center
‘This is going to have to go through Congress to be changed, but these things are constantly changing. I think the president is clearly trying to remove an obstacle for lesbian, gay and bisexual people to serve openly and that there are many other countries that allow individuals in their armed forces to do so. It is a matter of fairness. We’re losing a lot of individuals in the process of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
Meet the Expert: William Banks, a professor of political science
‘It’s really just political. I think everybody knows it’s the right thing to do – that the policy should be changed. The president, all the senior leadership and the Defense Department agree that it’s the right thing to do. It’s going to be persuading the representatives, the senators that their constituents support this change as well.’
