The Advocate is reporting that Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA 4th) has said that a repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell will likely be a part of next year's DoD Authorization Bill. This is huge news which may help to put the issue front and center.
A repeal of DADT is according to Rep. Frank a matter of "when", no longer "if".
Anecdotally, Frank recalled an incident earlier this year when Defense secretary Robert Gates made a statement to reporters suggesting that repeal was still an open question.
"There was a point where Gates said, ‘If we repeal don’t ask, don’t tell,’ and the next day he said, 'When we repeal don’t ask, don’t tell,’" said Frank. "That’s because Rahm called him up. The White House has been consistently committed."
Yes, this has been an issue on which Pres. Obama and the White House have never wavered, but to put a deadline on it is huge. There has been a lot of talk coming from the WH, but thus far there had been no action. As the article states, this is the first glimpse of the road Congress and the WH will take on the repeal. There are a couple of stand-alone bills floating around (one with 183 co-sponsors), but it seems that including the measure in the DoD Authorization would be the best way to go. As Rep. Frank says:
"Military issues are always done as part of the overall authorization bill," Frank said, insisting that this has been the strategy for overturning the policy all along. "'Don’t ask, don’t tell' was always going to be part of the military authorization."
Let's hope this holds up and that by this time next year, members of the LGBT community will be able to serve their country in the open, without reservation.