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The Calls Grow Louder

Monday, January 25, 2010 05:12 AM

tags: Barack Obama, Broken Promises, Don't Ask Don't Tell

“Many wonder when their president will show the same kind of concern for the constitutional rights of gay American service members as he has for enemy combatants held at Guantanamo Bay. Many wonder what the administration's willingness to treat gay Americans as second-class citizens says to Uganda and other countries that are considering laws that would subject gays to imprisonment and even death. Gay Americans have been among the president's most ardent supporters. Their enthusiasm, and that of their families and friends, could be crucial in this year's elections. The president's action—or inaction—on Don't Ask Don't Tell will be noticed. An increasingly frustrated bloc of gay voters—angry over marriage setbacks in California, Maine, New Jersey and New York and emboldened by Ted Olson's and David Boies's high-profile effort to declare unconstitutional laws that prohibit gay marriage—are growing impatient for equality. As Mr. Olson said in federal district court in San Francisco recently, discriminatory laws serve only to ‘label gay and lesbian persons as different, inferior, unequal and disfavored.’ " – Richard Socarides, attorney and former senior White House adviser on gay rights to Bill Clinton, adds his voice to the growing calls for action by President Obama on the repeal of the DADT policy in an article for the Wall Street Journal.

Related: Lawyers for the Joint Chiefs of Staff recently recommended yet another delay of at least a year before even starting the process to repeal the ban on openly gay military service. "Now is not the time," the legal counsel for Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote recently in a memo obtained by The Associated Press.