Today a new bipartisan proposal emerged under the leadership of Sens. Lieberman and Collins to pass repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” as a stand-alone piece of legislation. The news comes from a bipartisan group of Senators after today’s failed vote to proceed to debate on the National Defense Authorization Act. Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese issued the following statement:
“There has always been strong support in the Senate for repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ and in recent days it’s become clear that support reaches far beyond 60 votes. The issue has been the procedure by which the defense bill would be considered and given that no agreement was in place before today’s vote on the motion to proceed, that effort was doomed to failure.
“Thankfully a bipartisan group of Senators has committed to finding an alternative method of achieving repeal. We encourage all Senators to expeditiously take up this bill and pass it quickly so that the military has the power to implement a repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’
“The fight for open service has had many twists and turns but until ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ is left in the dustbin of history we will never give up the fight.”
