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Obama Fights To Preserve Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Before Supreme Court

President Barack Obama continued his effort to preserve the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in a filing before the United States Supreme Court. A trial court had imposed an injunction to halt the discriminatory policy. The Administration could have allowed the injunction to stand pending an appeal but succeeded in getting the order reversed. Now, it is defending its intention to continue to discriminate against gays and lesbians in an appeal to the Supreme Court.


The Justice Department had secured an order from the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco to allow it to continue to discharge service members solely because they are known to be gay or lesbian. It is also seeking to reverse a decision finding that such discrimination violates the Constitution. The Administration had the discretion not to appeal or to allow the injunction to stand. Instead it is fighting for the right to discriminate and has argued for an extreme view of military discretion in the abuse of gays and lesbians — including opposing the very right of individual service members to show that they were not personally a threat to good order and discipline. The Obama Administration has argued that the court should just accept that any and all openly gay and lesbian service members are a threat to good order and discipline — and thus a threat to our overall national security . . . And they wonder why Obama and Bush are now virtually even in the polls.

Source: MSNBC

65 thoughts on “Obama Fights To Preserve Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Before Supreme Court”

  1. Pingback: 95% of Marines uncomfortable serving with openly gay troops

  2. KING: Colin Powell was here the other night-

    BIDEN: Yeah- a good guy.

    KING: And said that he supports John McCain in this matter- let’s wait ’til we do the whole investigation by the military. Let’s wait until we hear from everybody- don’t rush it.

    BIDEN: Well-

    KING: Do you agree with that?

    BIDEN: We’re going to see that very, very shortly. There’s going to be a report early in December coming from the Defense Department and- on their recommendation. So, as my grandpa used to say, with the grace of God and the goodwill of neighbors, there will be a confluence of the two.

    KING: Do you think we’ll see the end of it by the end of the year?

    BIDEN: I hope so- I hope so.

  3. Thursday’s Larry King Live:

    KING: The wife will be joining us shortly, but one other thing I want to cover before she does join us- and that’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’

    JOE BIDEN: Yup.

    KING: You were against it, as I understand?

    BIDEN: I am.

    KING: Certainly, the President is against it-

    BIDEN: Yeah.

    KING: Most of the administration is against it. Apparently, they polled troops- they’re against it, and you poll America- they’re against it. So why is this our policy?

    BIDEN: It is not- it is- look, Larry, this is complicated for people to understand and I don’t blame them.

    KING: Simplify it.

    BIDEN: Simplified, as easy as I can say it is, Congress passed a policy it has not repealed yet.

    KING: But the President could sign it away, couldn’t he?

    BIDEN: No. The President couldn’t- cannot sign it away. What the President can theoretically do is tell the Justice Department to breach what is the understanding that all Justice Departments have. Justice Departments are obliged to defend laws constitutionally passed by the United States Congress and signed by former presidents. So-

    KING: So the attorney general has to defend it for now?

    BIDEN: He has to defend it for now. We are pushing it as hard as we can. We just had a meeting today with the leadership in the Congress, saying we very much would like to see you pass legislation now, saying end ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’

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