Posted on 12/18/2010 7:35:51 AM PST by Red Steel
The Senate will act on two important pieces of President Obama's progressive legislative agenda today: the DREAM Act and the repeal of the military's ban on openly gay servicemembers. By the end of the day, the path to final passage is expected to be set for DADT repeal, while DREAM is expected to languish for another Congress to pass.
Starting at around 10:30 this morning, the Senate will take up a cloture vote on DREAM. Cloture -- voted in by a 60-senator super majority -- is required to cut off debate and move a bill to final passage in the Senate. DREAM, which would provide legal status for illegal immigrants who serve in the military or earn college degrees, is not expected to hit that mark, effectively scrapping the bill for the time being.
That will set the stage for a cloture vote on a standalone DADT repeal bill, which proponents say is destined for passage. That will be the first step toward ending the nearly two-decade practice of allowing gays and lesbians to serve in the military, but not if anyone who works with them knows they're gay. Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), who has been the driving force behind lining up the votes for DADT repeal, says he has the 60 he needs and most observers expect there to be little drama today.
Lieberman and his allies in the Democratic caucus are expected to get help repealing DADT from at least four Republicans -- Sens. Scott Brown (MA), Susan Collins (ME), Lisa Murkowski (AK) and Olympia Snowe (ME). Most of the rest of the GOP caucus is expected to vote against it, though Lieberman said yesterday that the bill may pick up support from the GOP as it heads toward final passage.
On the Democratic side, Sen. Joe Manchin (WV) has not said whether he'll support the standalone bill -- and he voted against repeal the last time it came up, as part of a defense spending bill last week. Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND), who voted for cloture on the spending bill, has also not said how he'll vote. Proponents of repeal say they don't need either vote to win today.
Supposing cloture is reached (which, again, is all but a foregone conclusion according to supporters of repeal), a final vote on the bill to end DADT could come as early as today. More likely than not, however, 30 hours of final debate on the measure will be kicked off by the cloture vote. That puts a final repeal vote sometime late Sunday.
The House already passed its version of the standalone DADT repeal (as well as DREAM, for what it's worth) which means that if the Senate passes the repeal this weekend it will go straight to the president's desk for likely signature.
Stay tuned throughout the day for live updates on the happenings here on Capitol Hill.
Senate will vote on DADT @ 3pm today.
Who would encourage their 18 year old son to live, sleep, and shower, with men who are openly perverts who practice anal sex? Who in their right mind would put a young man with a now uninhibited homosexual, (who btw, admittedly prefer very young boys for obvious reasons).
And if that young man objects advances? Says the wrong thing? The Congress has stated they now need “special training” for the military...ie, special disciplinary rules for those who may commit a “hate crime”.
And there will be “special medical” needs, (as the Homosexuals in Canada are now asking for.)
No parent should allow or encourage a teenage son to serve now.
I told Brown that I had a call from a friend who is in Kabul and I did.
He told me to pass a message and the message is this.
Please do not repeal don’t ask and that their voices should be heard not the homosexual special interest groups .
This and health care should be overturned at the first time they can.
Those who think this is no big deal then shame on you, this is a step to now overturning DOMA then teaching fisting in schools to little kids.
I can’t believe that a vote came the GOP should have closed Govt and should have made this an issue before the election but of course the GOP have many cowards who think they might be called a name.
The GOP cowards simply reflect Republican Party voters....who LOVE cowards...vote for them over fighters everytime.
GOP voters are the cowards...afraid of the MSM.
I do agree that not all gays are the same, under DADT the gays that did serve probably were mostly patriots.
However, once you allow open homosexuals in, the kind of gay that you will get will not be the patriotic type.
I'm spewing a litany of names @ them as I type!
ROLL CALL for the vote to move forward the repeal of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” in the Senate, by a vote of 63-33, as 60 votes were needed to advance the bill)...
*Note: Under Measure Title it says, “A bill to amend the Small Business Act...”. That is because the repeal of DADT was added as an amendment to this bill.
Yes- gays have been allowed to serve- as long as they weren’t overt, in-your-face and basically stayed in the closet.
The problems are myriad in my view. Let’s imagine base housing, shall we? Husbands and wives, families etc. live in communities on or around the military bases. NOW- you will have them mixing with lesbian and gay “couples” who are also living in base housing. What rights do heterosexual couples now have NOT to have their kids exposed to this “alternate lifestyle”? None.
This is going to have an enormous effect on the culture of the entire country- not just the military. Watch and see.
Meanwhile- the UCMJ does not look kindly on sodomy. I wonder what will become of that law?
This will change many of the assumptions we’ve made about life in America.
Have their names listed on a wall of shame and we we need to get them all fired for this vote.
New civil right protections for homosexuals leads to more disciplinary rules, hate crime laws, and as Congress has indicated “special training” is needed in the armed forces now. Not to mention the new/special "medical needs" the homosexual lobby is looking for.
We are witnessing the final act of treason by Karl Rove and the Bush/McCain Rinos.
This shows a housecleaning is needed at the Pentagon in 2012.
How you Doin? Well at 3 oclock DADT becomes a Reality,You may be right on the Dream act ,Dont know about START yet
START’s going down. and maybe the Land Grab too. So, I won’t bust your butt about that thread, but can maybe you see that either DeMint was wrong or you misheard? ;)
http://www.wallbuilders.com/LIBissuesArticles.asp?id=101
Has Homosexuality Always Been Incompatible With Military Service?
While the issue of homosexuals in the military has only recently become a point of great public controversy, it is not a new issue; it derives its roots from the time of the military’s inception. George Washington, the nation’s first Commander-in-Chief, held a strong opinion on this subject and gave a clear statement of his views on it in his general orders for March 14, 1778:
At a General Court Martial whereof Colo. Tupper was President (10th March 1778), Lieutt. Enslin of Colo. Malcom’s Regiment [was] tried for attempting to commit sodomy, with John Monhort a soldier; Secondly, For Perjury in swearing to false accounts, [he was] found guilty of the charges exhibited against him, being breaches of 5th. Article 18th. Section of the Articles of War and [we] do sentence him to be dismiss’d [from] the service with infamy. His Excellency the Commander in Chief approves the sentence and with abhorrence and detestation of such infamous crimes orders Lieutt. Enslin to be drummed out of camp tomorrow morning by all the drummers and fifers in the Army never to return; The drummers and fifers [are] to attend on the Grand Parade at Guard mounting for that Purpose. 1
General Washington held a clear understanding of the rules for order and discipline, and as the original Commander-in-Chief, he was the first not only to forbid, but even to punish, homosexuals in the military.
An edict issued by the Continental Congress communicates the moral tone which lay at the base of Washington’s actions:
The Commanders of . . . the thirteen United Colonies are strictly required to show in themselves a good example of honor and virtue to their officers and men and to be very vigilant in inspecting the behavior of all such as are under them, and to discountenance and suppress all dissolute, immoral, and disorderly practices, and also such as are contrary to the rules of discipline and obedience, and to correct those who are guilty of the same.
***
America’s first law book, authored by founding jurist Zephaniah Swift, communicated the popular view concerning sodomy:
This crime, tho repugnant to every sentiment of decency and delicacy, is very prevalent in corrupt and debauched countries where the low pleasures of sensuality and luxury have depraved the mind and degraded the appetite below the brutal creation. Our modest ancestors, it seems by the diction of the law, had no idea that a man would commit this crime [anal intercourse with either sex]. . . . [H]ere, by force of common law, [it is] punished with death. . . . [because of] the disgust and horror with which we treat of this abominable crime. 25
John David Michaelis, author of an 1814 four-volume legal work, outlined why homosexuality must be more strenuously addressed and much less tolerated than virtually any other moral vice in society:
If we reflect on the dreadful consequences of sodomy to a state, and on the extent to which this abominable vice may be secretly carried on and spread, we cannot, on the principles of sound policy, consider the punishment as too severe. For if it once begins to prevail, not only will boys be easily corrupted by adults, but also by other boys; nor will it ever cease; more especially as it must thus soon lose all its shamefulness and infamy and become fashionable and the national taste; and then . . . national weakness, for which all remedies are ineffectual, most inevitably follow; not perhaps in the very first generation, but certainly in the course of the third or fourth. . . . To these evils may be added yet another, viz. that the constitutions of those men who submit to this degradation are, if not always, yet very often, totally destroyed, though in a different way from what is the result of whoredom.
Whoever, therefore, wishes to ruin a nation, has only to get this vice introduced; for it is extremely difficult to extirpate it where it has once taken root because it can be propagated with much more secrecy . . . and when we perceive that it has once got a footing in any country, however powerful and flourishing, we may venture as politicians to predict that the foundation of its future decline is laid and that after some hundred years it will no longer be the same . . . powerful country it is at present. 26
In view of the arguments listed by historical and legal sources, there is substantial merit for maintaining the ban on homosexuals in the military. 27 The Founders instituted this ban with a clear understanding of the damaging effects of this behavior on the military. This ban has remained official policy for over 200 years and one would be hard-pressed to perceive the need for altering a policy which has contributed to making America the world’s foremost military power.
S.Brown and Snowe voted no
Jerkowski: Aye
Getting down to the end
DEFEATED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hi, all.
You know, I don’t post here very much. I read, because I learn a lot.
But I gotta tell ya, I’m getting sick and tired of us always being on the defensive from every kook and freak in our country.
Why don’t WE go on the offense for once?
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