DOD: Sole Excuse for Not Repealing DADT is Bigotry

The military is okay with out gays, according to a new survey of over 100,000 active service members–which means repealing DADT won't harm current military actions. Which also means, according to the Nation's John Nichols, that the only excuse left for not repealing DADT is outright homophobia.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said Tuesday that a "strong majority" the respondents had no objection to openly gay soldiers serving in military units. A remarkable 70 percent of the respondents of said that repealing DADT would have either a positive or, at worst, inconsequential effect on a unit’s ability to “work together and get the job done.” Of the 69 percent of respondents who said that they had served with someone whom they believed to be lesbian, gay or bisexual, an overwhelming 92 percent stated that their unit’s ability to work together was very good, good, or neither good nor poor. "In general," noted Dr. Gary Gates, a distinguished scholar with UCLA's Williams Institute for Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy, "the survey shows that fears associated with working with openly-LGB colleagues are much lower among those who have already done so.”

But rather than repeal DADT in the lame duck session, now Congress Republicans are demanding hearings before they'll advocate for a vote–and, conveniently, there's just not enough time before their party swoops in on the next session.

“Using the last days of a lame duck Congress to hastily repeal ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ would be highly irresponsible,” claimed Congressman Joe Wilson, the South Carolina Republican famed for his “you lie” heckling of President Obama’s address to Congress on health care who is now the the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee subcommittee on military personnel.

California Congressman Buck McKeon, who will chair the Armed Services Committee when Republicans take charge of the chamber in January, echoed Wilson's line, declaring that:  "Democratic leaders in Congress have indicated that they will try to rush to repeal 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' in the waning days of the 111th Congress. This would be irresponsible."

The GOP, consistently sanctimonious, conveniently ignores its military leaders when it suits them. Or, as Dan Savage put succinctly on MSNBC last night... it's the definition of bigotry: