Judges Take a Backseat on DADT Repeal

However one feels about DADT, this time social change came about properly through the legislative process and not by judicial decree.

On Saturday, the Senate ended a filibuster on the repeal of the law preventing open homosexuals to serve in the armed forces.  This repeal has been the hobby horse of the gay movement and an effort for Republicans seeking “moderate” cred to adhere to the zeitgeist.  Charitably, some like Joe Lieberman, actually think it has become more trouble than its worth and will improve military readiness.  The compromise was arrived at in the Clinton administration but became unsupportable in Democratic circles as the clout of the gay lobby and its premises have become Democratic orthodoxy.

The repeal of DADT has one feature not prominent in most social liberal victories of recent years.  It was approved of by the majority.  The Senate had to break a filibuster to pass it and did so.  My view is that that was because of a temporary majority that would have ended next year, but nonetheless in both the House and Senate for one election cycle majorities approved of eliminating this policy and voted to repeal it.

I believe that some of this is simply the fact that most people in modern America have precious little contact with the military and particularly combat arms.  They have far too much contact with the views of Lady Gaga.  Nonetheless, obtaining even a temporary super majority in the Senate is no small feat.

This then has to be counted a victory for the proper process.  While some judges had begun their inevitable warping of the Constitution to strike down DADT it had been upheld again and again and those precedents will stand.  We will avoid the legal corruption of the Obama administration “laying down” in Court on the statute and thus undermining both the adversary process and the Executive’s duty to ensure the laws are faithfully executed.

The next step of the GLBT lobby will be to use political correctness and military command to transform the military into an engine for stigmatization of any view not in accord with their agenda.  Conservatives ought to be on the lookout to use these efforts, as inevitable as sunrise, to highlight the falsity of many of the claims supporters of repeal made that nothing significant or essential to good order would change.

The following stories and incidents will be ignored by the New York Times and the mainstream press:  1) the effort to oust or demote soldiers who continue to make jokes about homosexuality; 2) the attack on the chaplaincy of the armed forces for any mention of orthodox views on the matter; 3) any recruitment downturns or resignations based on the new policy; 4) incidents of sexual abuse by gay service members up to and including violations of the military code of conduct; 5) the actual paucity of GLBT affiliated recruits under the new policy; 6) the continued dearth of interpreters of Middle Eastern languages touted as a reason for repeal.

Congressional oversight in the House will soon be in the hands of the Republicans.  The administration of this policy ought to be carefully monitored by the incoming Congress so that its negative effects are minimized and any claims of its supporters that don’t materialize are highlighted.

Conservatives should point out at every opportunity that, lame duck session irregularity aside, this is precisely how social change is supposed to come by votes not by judicial decree.