WASHINGTON (ABP) — President Obama, in his first official State of the Union address Jan. 27, focused largely on kitchen-table issues and mainly avoided controversial social topics. But he did signal his intent to push harder to allow gay military personnel to serve openly — to the cheers of gays and their allies and the jeers of many social conservatives.
Treasury Secretary Timothy greets President Obama following his State of the Union address. At left is Defense Secretary Robert Gates. (White House photo/Pete Souza)
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“We find unity in our incredible diversity, drawing on the promise enshrined in our Constitution — the notion that we're all created equal; that no matter who you are or what you look like, if you abide by the law you should be protected by it; if you adhere to our common values you should be treated no different than anyone else,” Obama said, in a salute to American values near the end of a speech that was otherwise almost completely devoted to the lagging economy, job creation and health-care reform.
“We must continually renew this promise,” he continued, going on to praise last year’s passage by Congress of a bill that extends federal hate-crimes statutes to include crimes based on a victim’s real or perceived gender, sexual orientation or disability.
“This year, I will work with Congress and our military to finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are,” Obama concluded. “It's the right thing to do.”
The statement elicited a standing ovation from most congressional Democrats, a handful of moderate Republicans and Obama’s Cabinet members — including Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.
But members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — who represent the top leaders in each branch of the armed forces — were notably stoic. Although tradition dictates that members of the Joint Chiefs, the Supreme Court and the press refrain from visible reactions to political pronouncements made during the State of the Union address, members of the Joint Chiefs did enthusiastically applaud two other statements in the speech — a call for taking better care of veterans and a strong warning to Iran about its nuclear ambitions.
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Advocacy groups on both sides of the issue reacted immediately to the announcement. The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay-rights organization, sent an e-mail message out to supporters just moments after the speech ended laying out its strategy for repealing the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy that prevents openly gay soliders from serving.
“We've spent months designing a plan to pass legislation which repeals DADT. The plan will include organizing veterans across the country, generating media coverage in key markets and building focused campaigns in targeted states that will be critical to securing the final votes in the House and Senate,” the message said. “First step: pushing legislation through the House by building a well-spring of support from representatives, while laying the groundwork for a critical fight in the Senate.”
But a press release immediately after the speech by the conservative Family Research Council denounced what they called Obama’s plan to “sexualize the military.”
“As a veteran of the Marine Corps, the timing of the president's call in the midst of two wars shows that he is willing to jeopardize our nation's security to advance the agenda of the radical homosexual lobby,” Tony Perkins, the group’s president, said in the statement. “The military is a warrior culture for a reason: Our service members wear the uniform to fight and win wars, not serve as liberal social policy guinea pigs. The sexual environment the president is seeking to impose upon the young men and women who serve this country is the antithesis of the successful warfighting culture and as such should be rejected.”
The DADT policy is the result of a compromise forged when then-President Bill Clinton attempted to repeal the military’s long-standing ban on gay soldiers in 1993 and ran up against strong opposition. However, discharges for homosexuality have actually increased under DADT, and gay-rights groups have roundly denounced it as an ineffective and discriminatory policy.
Many of the United States’ closest allies — such as the United Kingdom and Israel — have allowed openly gay service members for several years, with none reporting significant morale or readiness problems. Polls have showed consistently for several years that significant majorities of Americans — 56 percent in a Quinnipiac University poll from last year — support repealing the ban on gays serving openly in the armed forces.
But much of the Pentagon’s top brass — who tend to be more conservative than younger officers and enlisted members of the military — and Religious Right leaders continue to argue that allowing gays to serve openly would damage unit cohesion and, therefore, troop readiness.
Whether Obama can lead Congress to repeal the gay ban depends largely on Democratic leaders in both chambers. Although Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) both support the repeal, they face the task of mustering enough Democratic and moderate Republican votes to do so without losing too many moderate Democrats who are worried about their re-election prospects in socially conservative states.
The rest of Obama's State of the Union dealt largely with creating jobs and passing some form of health-care reform before next fall's mid-term elections. Although Obama delivered his first speech to a joint session of Congress Feb. 25 of last year, it was officially referred to as “an address to Congress.” Presidents traditionally are in office for a year before their annual report to Congress is referred to as a “State of the Union” speech.
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Robert Marus is managing editor and Washington bureau chief for Associated Baptist Press.
Previous ABP stories:
Obama signs bill extending hate-crimes protections (10/29/2009)
Obama, in first address to Congress, focuses on economy, justice goals (2/25/2009)