Salvation Or Sham? “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Repeal Compromise
The compromise that created “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in 1993 has led, seventeen years later, to a compromise promising its repeal. But the LGBT community right now is in turmoil, unsure if it can trust the powers who have effectively oppressed and dominated us to keep their promises to free us.
Monday night, a compromise was reached between key Congressional leaders, the military, and the White House that effectively will allow a vote to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” to take place this week, (probably Thursday in the full House, and in the Senate’s Armed Services Committee as an amendment to the 2011 defense authorization bill,) with the very mild support of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.
(Gates’ support was so mild that it, along with Obama’s perceived reluctance, convinced Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) to decide to vote against repeal. “Moderate” GOP Senator and Senate Armed Services Committee member Scott Brown (R-MA) has also promised to vote against repeal. Fortunately, Senator Ben Nelson (R-NE) has surprised most and indicated he will vote in favor of repeal. Of course, Rep. Mike Pence is still lying, stating, “The American people don’t want the American military to be used to advance a liberal political agenda,” despite a CNN poll released yesterday that found that 78% of “the American people” want DADT repealed.)
If passed, repeal would not take place until after the military’s current invasive and unnecessary ten-month study has concluded, and even then, it would be up to the military — not Congress — to determine how and when implementation of the repeal would take place. In short, as many in the LGBT community are concerned, a gentleman’s agreement and a handshake are all we’re getting.
Esteemed civil rights activist David Mixner, who left the Clinton White House as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was being forged, weighed in. Writing “DADT: Compromise, Faith and Full Equality,” on his blog, Mixner voiced many strong and insightful thoughts which you should read, but I’ll share this one with you:
In the end, it is apparent that as a community we are being asked to proceed with “total faith” in the President and his willingness to take decisive action next winter. This compromise gives us no guarantees, doesn’t end current discrimination and leaves hoping for the best in others. ” Faith” is going to be tough for many people since some of us remember how in 1993 “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was touted as a major compromise and progress. Yes, it is wrong to live in the shadow of the past since it is 18 years later and it is a different world. However it is also wrong to ignore the lessons of our history – which tell us that most times when we have been asked to have “faith”, we have been given darkness.
So, do we trust Obama, who, I am sorry to say, is someone who means well but whose portrayal of patience, caution, and pragmatism seems more like running and hiding? (See: LGBT rights, BP oil “spill,” immigration reform, health care reform, public option…)
And how could we possibly trust the military to do the right thing? To quote a good friend, it would be like trusting a drug addict to quit cold-turkey, when he has no desire to quit in the first place.
The good news is once Congress votes to repeal, and it looks like they will, we’ve got a huge roadblock out of the way. The bad news is that once Congress votes to repeal, and it looks like they will, we have to trust Obama and the military to do the right thing. And then, we have to trust the next administration, and the next, and the next, to continue it.
Because even if and when “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the law, is repealed, there is nothing in place to ensure discrimination does not continue. Remember, before it was the law of the land, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” has been the military’s policy, in various forms, since World War II. And even if the law and the policy are rescinded, the attitude and behavior of harassment and subjugation must be eliminated through formal training and follow-up.
The right thing also means time. Because even if Congress repeals “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” tomorrow, they are ceding all power to the military to determine how and when repeal will become effective.
The worst case scenario is that the military could decide, after their study is complete on December 1, that implementation would have to take years. They could also decide to not stop the “don’t pursue” part of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Pursue, Don’t Harass.” (Yes, most folks forget that’s really its name. Sadly, the last half of its name is forgotten, both in word and in deed.)
So, what we could have is an equally offensive slap in the face, if the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law is rescinded, but the policy remains in place. And literally hundreds of good soldiers will continue to be kicked out of the armed forces, this time, not because of the law, but despite the law.
Huffington Post’s Aaron Belkin is more optimistic. In “Jim Crow? Really?,” he writes,
Here’s why that scenario shouldn’t scare us. 2010 is not 1993. The Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff and the Republican Secretary of Defense have called for open gay service. The public supports open service overwhelmingly, and that includes a majority of Republicans. Within the ranks, people just don’t care. Sure, there are some die-opponents in uniform. But their numbers are small and dwindling. Polls show that the number of service members who feel strongly about the issue is trivial, somewhere around 5 or 10 percent depending on the survey.
I’m sure that future Republican administrations will try to force gay troops back into the closet. And it would be much better to have a legal promise of nondiscrimination than an executive order or Pentagon regulation. That said, the regulatory path will be durable. Ex-president George Bush tried to undo a Clinton-era executive order mandating non-discrimination among non-military federal employees, and he couldn’t get away with it. As Ana Marie Cox has pointed out, racial integration was wildly unpopular when President Truman implemented it via executive order, and that policy has persisted for more than six decades.
The major LGBT groups — HRC, SLDN (whose executive director, Aubrey Sarvis today called it a “welcomed compromise,”) and Servicemembers United all support the compromise.
Chris Geidner writes in Metroweekly,
A leading gay critic [Richard Socarides] of the administration’s progress on LGBT issues called the compromise language unveiled this week for ”Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” a ”conditional future repeal,” adding that it ”is not repeal with delayed implementation.”
The bottom line?
The compromise is a step forward, but into unknown, and unprotected territory. Kind of like where we were before the compromise.
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
