By Anne Gearan - The Associated Press
Posted : Tuesday Jun 30, 2009 21:39:03 EDT
WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday he wants to
make the law prohibiting gays from serving openly in the armed forces “more
humane” until Congress eventually repeals it. He said he has lawyers studying
ways the law might be selectively enforced.
“One of the things we’re looking at is, is there flexibility in how we
apply this law?” Gates said.
The defense chief, a holdover from the Republican administration of
former President George W. Bush, told reporters traveling with him in Europe
that the Clinton-era ban was written without much wiggle room. The Pentagon
general counsel is looking at potential avenues around full enforcement as a
stopgap, Gates said.
For example, Gates said, the military might not have to expel someone
whose sexual orientation was revealed by a third party out of vindictiveness or
suspect motives. That would include, Gates said, someone who was “jilted” by
the gay service member.
“That’s the kind of thing we’re looking at to see if there’s at least a
more humane way to apply the law until the law gets changed,” Gates said,
according to a transcript released by the Pentagon.
Gay rights activists and others have criticized the Obama administration
for not quickly following through on a pledge to lift the ban on openly gay
military service.
President Barack Obama and his spokesmen say he remains committed to
repealing the Clinton-era law known as “don’t ask, don’t tell,” but neither the
White House nor congressional leadership has moved swiftly to do so.
There is no timetable for the pending bill to repeal the 1993 law, which
was intended as a compromise to get around a full ban on gay military service. Gay
rights leaders, however, have said it is an insult.
Obama says he wants to build support for the change among military
commanders before urging Congress to move ahead.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff and others have cautioned that
repeal of the law must be done carefully so as not to disrupt military cohesion
in wartime or to place an additional burden on an already overstretched
uniformed force.
Gates said he discussed repeal of the no-gays policy with Obama last
week, but he did not detail the conversation.
“We were talking about how do we move forward on this to achieve his objective,
which is changing the policy, and the issue that we face is that how do we
begin to do preparations and simultaneously the administration move forward in
terms of asking the Congress to change the law,” Gates said.
Several liberal legal experts and outside groups have urged Obama to
issue an executive order that would make the law unenforceable, but Gates
appeared to be considering measures short of that.