We Cannot Just Stand Alone: Lessons from the DADT Repeal Campaign
By Steve Ralls on 02/08/2011 @ 01:10 PM
As someone who worked for nearly a decade on the campaign to repeal the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” ban on lesbian, gay and bisexual service members, I’m always amazed at the misinformation and misperceptions that have surrounded the strategy to win open service in the armed forces. One of the most pervasive, and untrue, is that repealing the military’s ban happened only when a stand-alone bill was introduced in Congress.
In fact, the history and strategy behind repeal is much more complex — and entirely different — than that.
A stand-alone bill to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was introduced in the House of Representatives, for the first time, in 2005 by then-Congressman Marty Meehan. A stand-alone measure was not introduced in the Senate until nearly six years later. In the interim, omnibus (or large, multi-issue) legislation provided the foundation for building support, in both chambers, to finally end the military’s ban.
Or, to put it more simply (and more bluntly): Repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” would not have happened without repeal legislation being included in larger, comprehensive bills.
That truth is one of three misconceptions corrected by LGBT advocate and journalist Michelangelo Signorile (pictured) in an eye-opening - and accurate - new column at The Advocate.
Signorile writes that the “revisionist history” regarding stand-alone legislation, “plays on all the others, particularly since it was grassroots activists, along with SLDN, who pushed hard early on to get repeal included in the defense authorization bill.”
“While DADT repeal did eventually pass by itself,” Signorile notes, “it would not have been taken seriously had it not originally been included in the defense bill, a must-pass piece of legislation. Attaching repeal to the bill forced senators to grapple with the prospect of voting against funding for the troops in order to pander to religious conservatives and Pentagon hard-liners. In the end Republicans and a handful of Democrats chose to filibuster the bill twice, but not without significant hand-wringing, which only heightened the repeal effort’s relevance. But even more important, as the year dragged on, the inclusion of DADT repeal in the defense bill became the excuse moderate Republican senators used to join the filibuster.”
“If repeal had been voted on as a stand-alone bill earlier in the year,” he adds, “it wouldn’t have had much relevance or momentum. And voting on the bill prior to release of the Pentagon study surely would have doomed it.”
Or, as one blogger in D.C. summarized it, “Change is about alignment and timing.”
That’s true of almost every issue – LGBT or otherwise . . . national security or immigration. And it’s a truth that sits at the center of Immigration Equality’s advocacy on behalf of binational families. We pursue every legislative path for victory. That includes stand-alone legislation and its inclusion in broader legislation, too.
Indeed, repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is probably the biggest legislative victory – for the LGBT and progressive communities – of the past few years. Yet, as Signorile rightly points out, it would not have become reality without a strategy that included placing repeal within a larger legislative vehicle. That could — as UAFA champions Jerrold Nadler and Patrick Leahy have both previously noted — be true for ending discrimination against binational families, too.
A smart strategy resulted in an historic win for lesbian, gay and bisexual military personnel. It is important that we focus on the real strategy behind that win – and not the revisionist history of how it happened – as we move forward in winning an equally critical victory for our families, too.
If we want to win, and win as quickly as possible, we cannot just stand alone.
To read Michelangelo Signorile’s full column in The Advocate, click here.
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