Diegetic Sight & Sound

How to Really Beat ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ » Walter Dellinger

Many people seem to believe that the law would disappear if the Justice Department refused to appeal the court order. But there are two reasons that’s not the case.

First, the government has an obligation to comply with the nation’s laws, regardless of whether the president agrees with a particular statute. Doing otherwise would also set a precedent justifying similar nullifications by future administrations. The next president might, for example, decide not to enforce the recent health care reform law; all he would need would be a single ruling against the law by a single district court judge, which he would then refuse to appeal…

… The best path to ending “don’t ask, don’t tell” is for Congress to repeal the law as soon as possible. If it doesn’t, President Obama should give the Supreme Court his administration’s honest view: that the law is harmful to national security.