‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ repeal: the perfect alignment, with a price

The suspense is over: The U.S. Senate finally took a vote on a bill to repeal the ban on openly gay people in the military and passed it, 65 to 31. Having Congress pass that bill, to repeal “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” and having that bill signed by the President is an important legislative and political milestone.

It is not the first time the LGBT community has ever succeeded at dismantling a form of institutionalized discrimination. That honor goes to the eradication of laws prohibiting consensual sex between same-sex partners. That was done state by state and, eventually, in the U.S. Supreme Court.

The community has, in several states, won the right to obtain marriage licenses the same as straight couples. And, in 2010, it made enormous progress towards marriage equality nationwide through several lawsuits.

But passing the DADT repeal bill in Congress this year was itself a Herculean feat. Partisan hostilities were at an apex, and the Democratic majority was eroding. Two efforts to break a Republican-led filibuster failed. Many in the community voiced impatience and exasperation at the stops and starts in moving legislation.

Even more were uneasy with the White House strategy of giving military officials such voice in how and when repeal might happen. And some wondered why repealing the discriminatory policy in the military took precedence over bills that could have benefited even more people. At the end of 2009, after all, the community was hearing that the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) would get a vote.

ENDA was blocked, in large part, by deliberations over the landmark –- and contentious — health reform legislation. It was also snarled to some extent by preoccupations over bathroom accommodations and wild imagining of bearded kindergarten teachers in dresses.

But ultimately, says Mara Keisling, an activist who has pushed hard for ENDA, the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” repeal had more money and more organizational drive behind it, from Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, Servicemembers United, GetEqual, and the Center for American Progress, to name just a few.