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Attempt to impose homosexuality on the military stopped in Senate vote, along with DREAM Act
I haven’t been paying attention to the progress of the attempt to repeal the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, probably because I didn’t believe it was possible that the Congress would finally do such a crazy and absurd thing as allow open homosexuality in the ranks of the armed services, with all the chaos and conflict that would inevitably bring. But tonight there is very good news. By four votes, the Democrats failed to reach the 60 votes needed to bring the measure to a final floor vote. All 40 of the available Republicans plus three Democrats voted against cloture, resulting in a 56 to 43 vote. Actually what was stopped was the entire 2011 defense authorization bill, which includes the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, as well as (I believe) the DREAM Act. It’s not entirely clear from The Hill’s article if the DREAM Act was part of the defense authorization bill which failed cloture, or if it was in a separate amendment which was also blocked by the Republicans. And if it was in a separate amendment, it’s not clear how it was blocked. Either way, it seems that the DREAM Act has been stopped. The article also does not explain how the defense authorization bill can now be passed, unless the repeal-DADT measure is removed from it.
The repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell appears to be dead at least until the election. The homosexual lobbyists are calling for an attempt to pass it in the lame duck session, but that is a very uncertain prospect. Email entry |