“That changed the political landscape, and we have a Congress that is a lot more engaged and interested in repealing DADT than any other legislature in the last 13 years,” said outgoing SLDN executive director Dixon Osburn.
Shifting with the wind
Eyes are once again on Maine’s moderate senators, who are positioned to shift from one side of the aisle to another depending on which way the wind blows, and many believe they could be on the fence with DADT.
Support for Meehan’s bill has been overwhelming, for a change.
“We have just as many co-sponsors just in the past two months than we did in all the last two years. We have a promise of a hearing in a House committee, and that will be the first time that the House has debated DADT since its inception,” says Osburn, indicating that, with any luck, the bill will eventually make its way to the Senate.
Within days of introducing the legislation, activists got a boost in the aftermath of General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, telling the Chicago Tribune, on March 13, he supports “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” because homosexual acts “are immoral.”
His remarks were swiftly met with unusual bipartisan outrage, including the call for an apology from seven high-ranking military veterans, and didn’t reflect the sentiment of the country, or even the military.
In fact, a Zogby Poll released last winter showed that 73 percent of returning Iraq/Afghanistan war veterans are now comfortable with gay Americans, a shift from 13 percent in 1993. And, in March, a Pew Research Center poll revealed that 62 percent of moderate Republicans support gays serving openly, along with 85 percent of liberal Democrats.
Most telling is the split in the Republican Party, which might, from its leaders’ rhetoric, be expected to support DADT, or even a return to an outright ban on gays in the military. Forty-six percent favor allowing gays to serve openly and 46 percent are opposed. Meanwhile, moderate and liberal Republicans favor it by a wide margin (62 percent-29 percent) — that is, ostensibly, the group with which Collins and Snowe identify.
Patrick Sammon, president of the Log Cabin Republicans (a national group of gay and lesbian Republicans, which opposes DADT), notes that while there’s no legislation formally before the Senate, “it’s clear that more and more Republicans are eager to weigh in, especially after the remarks of General Pace. ... I think the hesitation on both sides of the aisle to discuss DADT is that they remember when it was discussed before and they incorrectly think that it will still cost a political price. Well, times have changed.”
The activity in Congress, the firestorm following Pace’s remarks, and poll data ought to provide DADT opponents with sufficient ammunition to convince Snowe and Collins there is support for change, say activists. But, the coup de grâce was a March 14 opinion piece in the Washington Post opposing DADT, written by former Republican senator Alan Simpson — who voted in favor of DADT in 1993.
