Back in October, President Barack Obama promised the Human Rights Campaign, “I will end Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. That’s my commitment to you.” Around the same time, Senator Carl Levin promised that Senate Armed Services Committee would hold a hearing in November on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, the policy that compels the military to expel soldiers and sailors who admit to being homosexual or bisexual.
So far, neither politician has followed through on his promise. Barack Obama, having given his speech, settled back to forget about the issue once more. Carl Levin, having made his promise, discovered that his committee all of a sudden was too busy to be bothered.
Agence France-Presse reports that aides the committee now acknowledge that no hearing on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell has been scheduled. The AFP politely says that the hearing has been “postponed”. However, with no actual scheduled date for the hearing, it would be more accurate to say either that the hearing has been canceled, or that it never was going to happen in the first place.
Will Democrats be able to count on the LGBT vote in the mid term congressional elections of 2010? As the reliability of Democratic politicians further erodes with every passing month, trust seems to be in short supply. Failure of Democrats in Congress and the White House to follow through on LGBT issues could combine with general progressive disappointment to provide a margin of defeat large enough for the Democrats to lose control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives once more.
