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.
It is my personal belief that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would be the right thing to do. No matter how I look at this issue, I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens. For me, personally, it comes down to integrity—theirs as individuals and ours as an institution.
