Would you agree to a repeal of DADT in exchange for a ban on gays in the military?

[Still a Democrat]

That's something like the choice Bill Clinton had. Congress was ready to ban gays, and DADT was the compromise. It was the liberal position at the time. It allowed gays to serve and continue to prove their great value. It led to what we see today. Let's not trash President Clinton for doing all he could for progress.

[BzaDem]

1. Not only that, but Congress had the votes to override Clinton's veto.

So it wasn't just like the tax situation (where Obama could have vetoed the tax bill and caused collateral damage, but tax rates on the rich would have gone up).

It was actually a case where if Clinton vetoed the bill, they would have passed it anyway (though with a complete ban, as opposed to DADT).

[bluestateguy]

2. In hindsight, leaving the old policy in place would have been better

Then it could have been revoked by E.O. once passions simmered down, and all of this paper pushing in Congress could have been avoided.

Or, Mr. Clinton could have told the Congress and the military brass to lump it, and just issued the order himself in 1993 and dared them to stop him. B

[ruggerson]

5. They were about to pass a statute codifying the ban

And they had a veto proof majority. You're mistaken if you think an outright ban codified as a statute was a better alternative. DADT was the best compromise he could get from COngress.

I am no great admirer of Bill Clinton for a variety of reasons - but for the times, DADT was a step forward.

[bluestateguy]

9. I have never seen nor heard evidence that they had a veto proof majority

Strikes me as revisionist history.

[Hippo_Tron]

12. Sam Nunn the Democratic chairman of the Armed Services Committee was leading the charge

Clinton would never have signed DADT if he believed he could sustain a veto.

[mitchtv]

30. you are wrong

ruggerson is right

[donheld]

36. Sorry, but you're incorrect

[Hippo_Tron]

10. It wouldn't have happened until pretty recently anyway, though

Congress likely had the 2/3rds to pass a ban during the entire tenure of the Clinton Administration should he ever decide to overturn it by executive order, though. Then Bush would certainly not have overturned the ban.

The only difference is that it would have gotten done by executive order in the first few months of Obama's presidency rather than by law, now.

[Autumn]

3. Yeah, but that wouldn't be

very satisfying . :sarcasm: Very good post. Thank you.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

4. I agree

I remember the debate and at the time it was as good as we could get and was certainly better than having Congress write the ban into law. Clinton took a lot of flak for it but it was the right thing to do at the time. Kudos to Obama, Lieberman, et al for working dilligently to get it repealed!!!!

[Still a Democrat]

7. Yep - conservatives hated DADT

and it became their final refuge. We have come a long way.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

32. It's hard to believe it's been 17 years since DADT went into effect

It's been in effect for exactly half my age. Wow. Proof that change can and does happen.........but can also be painstakingly slow. It's sometimes scary to think how we tout ourselves as being one of the most advanced nations in the world yet so painfully backwards socially and domestically. It can be so frustrating for reasonable and intelligent people like us to watch. :banghead:

[Change Happens]

6. Yes...

[onehandle]

8. But you don't understand... All past actions that are not 100% liberal are bad.

Because we now live in a Liberal Paradise.

:sarcasm:

(I hate using that tag, but I probably should)

[NNN0LHI]

13. I don't ever use the sarcasm tag

Not sure if it works for me or not? Ain't been banned yet so I figure that the administrators must understand what I am saying by now without using the tag.

Don

[onehandle]

16. It's not the administrators that get it wrong. nt

[stray cat]

11. A rec for accuracy and factual, rationale information

[Motown_Johnny]

17. only if you substitute "creation" for "repeal"

Would I trade the Creation of DADT to stop a total ban on gays (17 years ago)? Yes

[JVS]

14. How about veto the ban on gays?

[Bonobo]

15. If Congress was ready to ban gays, Bill should have let them try it.

They would have paid for that shit big time at some point.

Clinton's 'compromise' was shit.

You don't compromise on values and DADT was a bad idea at its very core. Indefensible in fact.

The fact that it came from a "liberal" is exactly WHY it stayed in place for so long.

If a Repuke congress had done it, the Dems would have fought it all these years instead of accepting it because it came from one of themselves.

You got it ass-backwards.

[DURHAM D]

18. gheez - could you be more wrong?

nope

[Bonobo]

19. Enlightening, but...

I don't thin you know what you're talking about as you have made no points.

Compromising your values only succeeds in showing that you have no attachment to values.

Millions of kids have now grown up in the US in an environment where homosexuality was deemed so egregious that it had to be hidden -and BOTH political parties apparently agreed that this was correct for two decades.

So could YOU be more wrong? I don't think so.

[DURHAM D]

21. circle think much ?

it all goes round and round and you ignore the facts

bye

[Bonobo]

22. "Bye".

Nice debating skills!

You crack me up.

Thanks for the laugh!

[rhett o rick]

24. I agree. DADT was a ban on gays but just didnt appear like it. The decision at the time should have

been either ban gays or let them serve. Instead we got DADT which was never enforced as it was intended. It was a ban on gays that never got voted on as such. If you think about is DADT is childish. "Gays can serve as long as know one finds out". That put gay in a very tenuous position. If someone doesnt like you, bingo your out.

DADT wasnt a compromise it was a piece of shit.

[dsc]

26. A Democratic Congress had veto proof majorities to institute an outright ban

on gays serving. There were way, way more Southern conservative Democrats back then than there is now. In the Senate now we have 57 Democrats if you count Lieberman and Sanders, of whom one was opposed to repeal. That is 56 votes. We still needed 4 GOPers to win repeal. We would have needed 34 votes to sustain a veto in the Senate. We had 57 Dem Senators at swearing in. Those Dems included Heflin and Shelby of AL (the same Shelby who switched in 94) both would have certainly voted to ban gays. Bumpers and Pryor of Ark (Pryor is the father of the current Sen) and both would have certainly voted to ban gays. Graham of Florida who may have or may not have. Sam Nunn of GA who lead the charge to ban gays. Tom Harkin who might have voted to ban gays (he was the worst candidate on gay rights in the Dem primaries in 92). Wendell Ford who surely would have voted to ban gays. Johnson and Brauex of LA both certain votes to ban gays. Baucus of MT who may have voted to ban gays. Exon of Nebraska another certain vote to ban gays. Bingaman of NM who may have. Conrad of ND who almost did today so likely would have back then. Boren of OK who certainly would have. Hollings of SC who certainly would have. Sasser and Matthews who likely would have. Byrd who surely would have. We are now down to 36. Dorgan and Daschle might well have too getting to 34. Kruger in Texas likely would have voted to ban gays as well now we are at 33. The House was a no way no how senario.

[Bonobo]

27. Yes, but there would have likely been constitutional challenges

at some point in the last 20 years if such a ban had been put in place.

basically Clinton's DADT swept everything under the rug and halted any real examination of the immorality that is implicit in such discrimination.

[dsc]

29. there were several challenges to DADT

and until recently pretty much all of them lost. It took until 2004 for the SCOTUS to overturn civilian sodomy laws. The notion they would have been rushing to overturn a ban on gays in the military is absurd.

[Bonobo]

33. We will never really know. Those challenges were brought forward

against DADT and I am discussing challenges to an outright ban on gays serving in the military.
I am arguing that DADT actually made it harder to challenge unconstitutionality by creating this ambiguous environment of acceptance/non-acceptance.

[dsc]

34. the case law was pretty clear

the military is special, they can do what they want, and besides sodomy is a crime. None of that changes if you replace DADT with an outright ban. In point of fact, DADT is actually harder to defend constitutionally since it becomes an issue of speech and even when courts were presented with that argument they still said tough.

[Bonobo]

35. You make some very good points, DSC.

Thanks for the replies. It is clearly an issue where I am happy to defer to your greater knowledge of the law, politics and history.

[Angry Dragon]

20. The year is 2010

and yet here we are trying to decide which ones of us are human and deserving of living
When it comes right down to it we are no better than our distant relatives
We just think we are

[Lyric]

23. I just think it's hilarious that a large chunk of the people who HATE Clinton for being a pragmatist

and who used it as an excuse to bash him and Hillary a couple of years ago, will now contort logic in 10,000 different ways to defend Obama's "pragmatism".

Comedy gold.

[liberalmuse]

25. I will not hate on Clinton. OR Obama.

Look with the shit they had/have to work with. Republicans. After they had years to fuck things up. Democratic Presidents have been sweeping up elephant shit since Hoover.

[Bonobo]

28. More like sweeping elephant shit under a thin rug. nt

[Ozymanithrax]

31. I was in the military at the time...

anyone found to be gay was courtmartialed and sent to jail then given a Dishonorable discharge. Gays did not serve openly in the military. When it was found out that a person was gay, they went to jail.

DADT allowed them to serve if they lied about their sexuality, and led to their discharge if they revealed their sexuality.

[ProSense]

37. There was going to be no outright ban

Bill Clinton introduced the compromise at the start of his Presidency.

A Retreat on Gay Soldiers

<...>

President Clinton was on the right track when he pledged during the campaign to lift the ban on gay service members. But once in office, Mr. Clinton erred by not lifting it with the stroke of a pen. Instead, after months of wrangling, the Administration issued a half-hearted policy on July 19 that left the ban in place but curbed the screening and investigations designed to ferret out homosexuals.

<...>

The whole purpose of the Senate bill is to exclude homosexuals because their presence would create an "unacceptable risk" to morale, discipline and unit cohesion. But it is shocking how little evidence supports that assertion. When challenged on the floor, Senator Nunn cited the predictable testimony of top generals. Their seasoned judgments deserve to be weighed -- but they may simply be reluctant to tackle a tough social issue.

The Rand report offers voluminous evidence that homosexuals and heterosexuals could indeed work together effectively. Its researchers visited foreign military establishments that welcome or tolerate homosexuals, including such capable armies as those of Israel, France and Canada; none thought their effectiveness had been reduced. The researchers visited police and fire departments where gay and heterosexual members put their lives at risk together; none reported a loss of effectiveness.

<...>

A pending defense bill has language identical to the Senate's, but more progressive members hope the Rules Committee will allow debate on an amendment that would leave policy on homosexuals in the military to the Administration. That is the best way to go. Cementing the Senate language into law will just make it harder to ease the ban as social attitudes become more enlightened.