Seventy-seven members of Congress, 76 Democrats and 1 Republican, sent a letter to the White House today asking for the President to suspend current Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell investigations and discharges by presidential moratorium, which would change the policy’s implementation within the Department of Defense, as opposed to an Executive Order. Excerpts from the office of Congressman Alcee L. Hastings:

… Although we are confident that you will remain true to your campaign promise to end Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, our LGBT service members and our country’s national security will continue to suffer if initial action is delayed until 2010 or 2011. We urge you to exercise the maximum discretion legally possible in administering Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell until Congress repeals the law. To this end, we ask that you direct the Armed Services not to initiate any investigation of service personnel to determine their sexual orientation, and that you instruct them to disregard third party accusations that do not allege violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.  That is, we request that you impose that no one is asked and that you ignore, as the law requires, third parties who tell. Under your leadership, Congress must then repeal and replace Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell with a policy of inclusion and non-discrimination. This bilateral strategy would allow our openly gay and lesbian service members to continue serving our country and demonstrate our nation’s lasting commitment to justice and equality for all.

…

The American people and service members of the Armed Forces overwhelmingly support the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. According to a national Gallup poll conducted in May 2009, 69% of Americans, including 58% of Republicans, favor allowing openly gay men and lesbian women to serve in the military. Furthermore, a 2006 poll of 545 troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan by Zogby International and the Michael D. Palm Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara, revealed that 73% are personally comfortable with gay men and lesbian women. John Shalikashvili, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Clinton administration, and more than 100 retired admirals and generals support this repeal, in addition to the Human Rights Campaign, the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, and Knights Out, an organization of LGBT West Point alumni cofounded by First Lieutenant Choi.

Mr. President, we cannot afford to lose any more of our dedicated and talented service members to Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. On behalf of First Lieutenant Choi, Lieutenant Colonel Fehrenbach, and the more than 12,500 gay and lesbian service members who have been discharged since Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was implemented in 1994, we stand ready to assist you in repealing this dishonorable and debilitating law as soon as possible, and in restoring justice and equality in our Armed Forces.

The lone Republican who signed the letter was Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) and should be applauded. I am disappointed however that local representatives Jackie Speier and House leader Nancy Pelosi failed to sign, but at least the always reliable Barbara Lee of Berkeley did not disappoint. A complete list by rank below:

If your representative does not appear on the list above, please contact them and ask them why they failed to sign the letter and urge them to support the repeal of DADT. I’ll be contacting Rep. Jackie Speier today.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid indicated in a press conference today that there are no plans in the Senate to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) as there are no sponsors for such a bill at this time. From the Advocate:

“I haven’t identified any sponsors,” he [Reid] said. “My hope is that it can be done administratively.”

A Democratic aide later clarified that Reid was speaking about the possibility of using an executive order to suspend discharges or perhaps halting enforcement of the policy by changing departmental regulations within the Department of Defense.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs has continually said in recent months that President Barack Obama believes the only “durable solution” to repealing the military’s gay ban would be to do so through legislative action.

Now that the ball is back in Obama’s court, I can’t wait to hear Gibbs’ response.

Speaking on authority from the White House, John Berry, the director of the Office of Personnel Management, spoke with the Advocate about the recent outrage over the Obama administration’s defense of DOMA, as well as other LGBT legislative priorities…

On recent controversy over the administration’s defense of DOMA:

This president took a solemn oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States and he does not get to decide and choose which laws he enforces. He has to enforce the laws that have been enacted appropriately and that he has inherited. It would be wrong for me or any of our community to advise him to lie or to shirk his responsibility. He’s doing his job. He has made clear that he stands for the repeal of DOMA. It will be part of this administration’s agenda to accomplish that act. We ought not waste energy and angst attacking him when we should be focusing the energy and effort on getting 218 votes in the house and 60 votes in the Senate, and that’s where we ought to target the energy and the strength of this community and this president is with us, this is our agenda and it’s his agenda.

Again no mention of the incest and underage marriage cases cited in the DOMA defense. Our anger is not out of angst, nor is it a waste of energy. Until the administration takes action on these issues, we should not be silent.

On hate crimes, ENDA, DADT and DOMA:

We have four broad legislative goals that we want to accomplish and legislation is one of these things where you’ve got to move when the opportunity strikes, so I’m going to list them in an order but it’s not necessarily going to go one, two, three, four. Obviously, I think the first opportunity is hate crimes and we’re hopeful that we can get that passed this week. We’re going to try, but if not, we’re going to keep at it until we get it passed. The second one ENDA, we want to secure that passage of ENDA, and third is we want to repeal legislatively “don’t ask don’t tell,” and fourth, we want to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act.

When asked about DADT later in the interview, Berry walks back his opinion on the passage of hate crimes legislation…

We don’t have the votes to do Hate Crimes right now, we don’t have the votes to do ENDA, how are we going [to get “don’t ask, don’t tell]?

And all of this before the “sun sets on this administration.”

Well, there you have it. That’s likely the most official response we are going to get. And dammit, it’s not good enough, not good enough at all. But it’s what we’ve all come to expect now from the Obama administraiton. I’ve skipped the parts of the interview focusing on granting more rights to gay Federal employees. But I’m not a federal employee. Nor is the vast majority of LGBT Americans. Any legislation should target EVERYONE in the LGBT community, not just at the federal level.

In an interview with Air America’s Ana Marie Cox, Senator John McCain  re-affirmed his support for Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT). When Cox compared DADT to Truman’s forced de-segregation of the armed forces as a civil rights issue, a testy John McCain replied: “Well, you are entitled to your opinion. But I don’t think so.”

An excerpt from the interview below:

The full interview will air on Saturday 9am. An audio clip is available on the Air America website.