The Obama administration’s staunchest ally in the uphill fight to allow gays to openly serve in the nation’s military is a little-known Democratic congressman named Patrick Murphy, an Iraq war veteran who has written the only legislation that would repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” restrictions.
Mr. Murphy, a two-term Democrat from Pennsylvania, served in the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division and was the first Iraq veteran elected to Congress. His bill has 187 co-sponsors, leaving it just 31 votes short of the 218 needed to ensure passage.
“The momentum is clearly on our side,” he said in an interview. “It’s time for Congress to have the guts to stop turning its back on talented and professional soldiers just because they’re gay.”
With Defense Secretary Robert Gates heading to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to lay out the Pentagon’s preparations for a possible repeal of the 16-year-old ban, the long-dormant political battle over the “don’t ask, don’t tell” provisions is heating up.
But it is far from clear that enough Democrats from moderate or conservative states will want to risk casting a politically sensitive vote in favor of repealing the ban.
Missouri Rep. Ike Skelton, the powerful chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, opposes repealing the ban and has said his full committee won’t hold a hearing on Rep. Murphy’s bill, complicating its path to a vote.
Mr. Skelton’s Senate counterpart, Michigan Democrat Carl Levin, supports eliminating the ban, but some lawmakers have said they are waiting to hear the Pentagon’s full recommendations before introducing a bill. Such a step could be months away.
Mr. Gates’s appearance Tuesday before the Senate Armed Services Committee alongside Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will mark the first time that senior Pentagon officials lay out their thinking for how the ban could be repealed.
Read the full Wall Street Journal article here
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Patrick Murphy
You are a LIAR and a thief. I would debate you in public any day of the week if you didn’t hide like the rest of the cowards.
Keep rewarding those who seem to have money for cellphones and cigarettes but can’t seem to find a dime to put toward healthcare and your country will be no more. Obama is right about one thing…this can’t be sustained, but the BIGGER problem is, government can’t sustain it either. Never forget that this is supposed to be a representative republic. Anybody can get elected by telling 2/3 of the country that they can continue doing whatever they want while the remaining 1/3 pays for everything through hard work…but where does that lead eventually? Think about it. There is only ONE potential outcome, and I KNOW that’s what BO and dems really want, total government control. Good luck with that, it didn’t work too well for the thousands of other civilizations that have tried it…and they didn’t have the greatest document ever written to guide them, we did, and the dems ignore it.