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Bill To
Repeal 'DADT' To Be
Introduced Next Week In Congress
by
365Gay.com From the Web, February 22, 2007
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Washington -- Congressman
Marty Meehan (D-Mass.) announced Thursday he will reintroduce a bill next week
to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" the law preventing gays and lesbians from
serving openly in the military.
A similar bill died last year when the last session of Congress ended.
Meehan said that more than 120 Members of Congress from both parties have signed
on to co-sponsor the bill, called the Military Readiness Enhancement Act.
Since the ban on gays serving openly was implemented a decade ago more than
11,000 men and women have been dismissed under "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" according
to the Government Accountability Office.
Among them were more than two dozen Arabic translators, dropped by the Defense
Department since the war in Iraq began because they were openly gay.
Additionally, a study conducted last year for the Servicemembers Legal Defense
Network concluded that the U.S. military could attract as many as 41,000 new
recruits if gays and lesbians in the military were able to be open about their
sexual orientation.
As well, a Zogby poll taken in October showed three-out-of-four members of the
military who are serving in Iraq or recently returned home don't care if someone
in their unit is gay.
The poll, taken for the Michael D. Palm Center at the University of California,
Santa Barbara, also found that nearly one in four U.S. troops say they know for
sure that someone in their unit is gay or lesbian, and of those 59% said they
learned about the person's sexual orientation directly from the individual
Support for repeal has been steadily growing.
In January General John Shalikashvili, who served as Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff during the Clinton Administration called for repeal of DADT in
an op-ed article in the New York Times.
Two days later Clinton's Secretary of Defense, William Cohen, called for an end
to the ban.
The issue also came up this month when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
appeared before the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Responding to a question by Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY) Rice said the state
department does not have a ban on LGBT workers.
When she complained the department was having difficulty finding Arabic
translators Ackerman asked Rice why the state department had not hired any of
the translators fired by the Pentagon because they are gay and lesbian.
Rice refused to be pinned down.
Meehan has scheduled a news conference for Wednesday on the Hill shortly after
the repeal bill is introduced. He will be joined by an Iraq war veteran
from Texas who lost his right leg in combat and will be coming out of the closet
publicly in his support for the repeal of the law.
Also scheduled to attend are BG Evelyn “Pat” Foote, USA (Ret.), a member of
SLDN’s honorary board, and former Marine Sergeant Brian Fricke, an openly gay
veteran of the war in Iraq.
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