Andrew Sullivan Laments “Excruciating Trap” On Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

Earlier today, Virginia Phillips, a judge of the United States District Court, issued a critical ruling suspending the U.S. military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy on gay servicemen and women. Whether it holds up or not, it’s a powerful strike against a policy President Barack Obama says he wants repealed – but, as The Atlantic’s Andrew Sullivan pointed out, it’s a strike that may die at the hands of the Obama administration’s Justice Department.

Sullivan puts the dilemma thusly:

So once again, we will have the political prospect of the Obama administration simultaneously legally defending the Defense of Marriage Act and Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in court, while politically saying they oppose both.

It’s an odd situation, one Sullivan calls “constitutionally sound” yet also “increasingly perverse and bizarre” morally. After all, many more Americans support a repeal than oppose it, so the administration would be arguing not only against its own professed views, but those of a majority of the people they represent.

And according to Sullivan, there’s plenty of blame to go around as to why Obama hasn’t gotten Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell repealed already. He mentioned the “radically Christianist GOP” (and of course included favorite target Sarah Palin in that category), while also giving credit to the Log Cabin Republicans for filing the suit in which Phillips delivered her ruling. He didn’t let Obama off the hook, either, saying the “extra-cautious, gays-are-radioactive mindset of the Obama administration” is part of the problem…and that for the LGBT population to think Obama’s as in their corner as he says he is, he needs to do, well, something:

[I]f Obama thinks gay voters and our families are going to be happy when he ends his first term with nothing accomplished except the lifting of the HIV ban (backed by Bush) and a hate crimes bill that has so far had zero prosecutions, he is mistaken.

This certainly isn’t the first time Obama’s been criticized for not doing enough to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and until it’s officially a thing of the past, he’ll only hear even more barbs like the ones here. After all, it’s like Sullivan says: if Obama isn’t acting now, on this issue, seemingly one of the least controversial gay rights issues he could take a stand on…”when will he?”

H/T Glenn Greenwald

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