Justice Department Uses Colin Powell Comments To Defend 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'

Politico:

At the same time the Obama administration is taking some initial steps toward dismantling the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, the Justice Department is continuing to vigorously defend the policy in federal court, angering gay activists in the process.

The latest point of friction with gay advocates is a brief filed Monday night in federal court in California that repeatedly quotes from retired Gen. Colin Powell's statements nearly two decades ago in favor of the gays-in-the-military ban without noting that Powell has since reversed himself on the issue.

Read the whole story: Politico

Comments

[jws2346]

02:00 PM on 03/31/2010

Long live Gen Powell. If something is held against you from 18 freakin' years ago, then there are a lot of peeps in a jam!

[Marlyn]

10:49 AM on 03/31/2010

This action by the Justice Department shows me that the Justice Department is filled with GW Bush appointees who continue their right wing policies in spite of what President Obama says.

Initially I was puzzled by the lack of action concerning Cheney's lies about WMD. Where is the accountability?

But now I know for sure. Don't expect justice from the Justice Department.

Those Justice Department lawyers who have defended DADT with lies should be fired.

[tompoe]

07:16 AM on 03/31/2010

Powell is a war criminal. He belongs in front of the International Criminal Court, not quoted by the U.S. Department of Justice.

[Rainfish]

02:07 AM on 03/31/2010

Time to move on to a better way of doing things. The old saying about insanity being defined as performing the same task, like flapping your arms and expecting to fly, over and over and still believing it will work some day, is what the GLBT community is doing by putting all their hopes for change and all of their faith in a political party (the Democratic Party) which has no real desire to shake up the status quo of heterosexual privilege, and who continue to exploit us for money and for votes as the fearful and unquestioning little fools they hope we will continue to be.

In a close election that can be won or lost by just a few percentage points, the Dems know just how important (or useful) the GLBT community is to their goals -- it's time the GLBT community use that as leverage instead of letting them take it for granted. It time to stop acting like a battered housewife and coming back for more abuse. It's time to starting thinking of an alternative Third Party and break free of our dependency on the deceitful Democratic Party who gave us the gift of DADT (passed by a Democratic controlled Congress) and DOMA (willing signed into law by a Democratic president).

(cont'd)

[Marlyn]

10:53 AM on 03/31/2010

"the deceitful Democratic Party who gave us the gift of DADT (passed by a Democratic controlled Congress)" ???

That is NOT true. When DADT was passed and Clinton was President, Congress was controlled by Republicans.

[Rainfish]

02:06 AM on 03/31/2010

Now, we have Obama, the self-styled "fierce advocate" of the GLBT community, who in 1996, as a state senator, wrote:

"I favor legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages." ~ Barack H. Obama 1996

That was Obama's answer to a 1996 Chicago newspaper's question on marriage equality -- that is, before his ambition overwhelmed his ethics.

According to the Windy City Times, during the 1996 race for the Illinois State Senate, President Barack Obama gave statements that expressed an "unequivocal support for gay marriage."

Hmmmmmm...and what we here folks is someone who has actually de-evolved on social issues. Great job, Obama! And you ask us to trust him and his Party of lies? I don't think so.

[Rainfish]

02:03 AM on 03/31/2010

For all of you who insist that the DOJ must defend any law passed by Congress, then why is the DOJ not insisting that the DOA enforce anti-drug laws in California -- specifically involving the use of marijuana? It is the DOJs duty to ask for prosecutions of those who violate federal laws, isn't it?

Hmmm...yet Obama has taken a "hands off" approach to enforcement of federal drug laws as it relates to personal use of marijuana in those key Democratic states. Obama seems to pick and choose which laws Congress passes that he wants to enforce. Or maybe he just doesn't want to piss off the college-crowd and pothead wing of his base.

The GLBT community has raised more money for the DNC than any other minority, yet the Obama administration and the DNC think that they are too fearful to leave the flock, not matter how the Democrats ignore and abuse them. But November is right around the corner, and it is time for the GLBT community to tell the DNC, when it has its hand out again, to "Don't Ask, we Don't Give".

Let's put another ten Bernie Sanders in the Senate and thirty more like him in the House to turn things around after November 2010. We need a third party to act as a power-broker and a counter balance against the two entrenched parties in Washington who just scam the gullible and the system while really serving only their Corporate Puppet Masters.

[Samnchgo]

11:44 PM on 03/30/2010

Constitutionality aside, the DOJ has in this and the DOMA case filed briefs with some of the weakest arguments. So weak that their arguments are absurd and arcane. One has to wonder then if the Justice Department is deliberately throwing weak arguments at these cases so that they will lose (and the laws will be overturned by the courts -- thereby, allegedly, saving a Congressional battle over it) OR if the lawyers at the DOJ are simply incompetent and stupid. I can't decide.

On one hand, Bush did a good job of people-ing the DOJ with people who have degrees from places like Regent University. Many of those people are still there. Remember that the Bush DOJ engaged in racism, illegal hiring and firing and pretty much ignored being the people's lawyers but instead became an offshoot of the WH and a partisan political organization. So they obviously felt they had leeway in which cases they vigorously defended and which they didn't. (They didn't pursue Civil Rights cases at all.)

So we have a DOJ that's either homophobic, incompetent, stupid or all three. What we know is that the Obama administration has said many times that it will end the discrimination, but hasn't. The President could have issued an Executive Order suspending the enforcement of DADT while the policy was under review and while Congress takes action to repeal it. Allowing the DOJ to make such egregiously idiotic arguments does not serve the people well.

[jcwtts1]

10:07 PM on 03/30/2010

Let me say again, while I am pro-repeal the law is constitutional. If the law weren't constitutional it would have fallen in the 90s, pre Roberts and Alito. It didn't. Why? Because in the early/mid 80s that Supremes ruled on which classes of people are protected and which classes of people aren't. LGBT are actually one of the few groups listed as not protected. Absurd right? I know. My point is this. All of the arguments about how the DOJ can read this law as unconstitutional... no, they really can't. It is constitutional. Wishing it weren't doesn't change the reality. We have to repeal the actual law in order to change it. DOMA is the exact same thing. We must repeal these laws.

J

[Louie69]

10:32 PM on 03/30/2010

One ruling by the SCOTUS does not forever the settle the question of constitutionality.

I'm sure I don't have to note the many cases that demonstrate this fact.

So...who would force the DoJ to defend the law?

[jcwtts1]

02:02 AM on 03/31/2010

SCOTUS is not a federal appeals court. They are the appeals court. That means, yeah, it settles the questions of constitutionality until the Supremes rule again on the same or similar issues. For example, Roe is the law of the land. The conservatives would argue it is not constitutional but it is. How do we know that it is? In 1970-71 the Supremes ruled that it was unconstitutional to ban abortion in this country. So since 1971 the law of the land is that abortions can't be banned. The GOP tries to ban them in red states all the time. The ACLU or someone goes to federal court and the law they pass is struck down. So, yeah, the SCOTUS ruling as absurd and awful as it is is binding precedent.

[jcwtts1]

02:02 AM on 03/31/2010

If they had left the LGBT off the list and never mentioned them then a federal appeals court, like the 9th or 2nd circuit could have argued that the intent of the ruling was to include them. But someone, I can't remember who wrote for the majority then mentioned specifically why LGBT were not included and because of that explanation it is constitutional to discriminate against LGBT in this country. I know it is insane. I know it is so blatantly wrong that you would think we could all agree to just ignore it. But we can't. Because then the other side gets to ignore, Roe, the Civil Rights Act, and about a million other things. Right now Abortion isn't legal in this country. There is no law saying women have a right to abortions. There simply is a constitutional prohibition that says denying a woman an abortion is a violation of her right to privacy. That is why you don't get to hunt and peck laws and their constitutionality, or rulings and their constitutionality. Repeal the law, ignore the court. That is how you win.

J

[Louie69]

09:05 PM on 03/30/2010

“In this case the Department is defending the statute, as it traditionally does when acts of Congress are challenged,” she said. “The Department does not pick and choose which federal laws it will defend based on any one Administration’s policy preferences.”

Nonsense.

President Obama, keep your promise.

Dump DADT now.

[jcwtts1]

10:00 PM on 03/30/2010

Nonsense. The DOJ has an obligation to defend constitutional laws.

J

[Louie69]

10:29 PM on 03/30/2010

Note the spokewoman's use of the word "traditionally."

More important, note your use of the word "constitutional."

[rainbowblue]

07:47 PM on 03/30/2010

A simple Google search reveals that the DOJ has not only had the power not to defend laws they thought were unconstitutional, but that--Roberts (Chief Justice Roberts, that is) is a proponent of the idea.

(http://www.queerty.com/actually-mr-president-the-doj-does-choose-not-to-defend-discriminatory-laws-20090819/ for a summary of Roberts)

While the DOJ is part of the executive branch, they are also independent to a degree, and that means if a law signed by the President isn't Constitutional they don't have to defend it in court. DADT and DOMA aren't Constitutional. Among other issues with them is that they both violate the 14th amendment (which is probably grounds to question all the anti gay marriage amendments out there).

Obama is just playing politics with the gays...and you uninvolved straight people are buying it.

[jcwtts1]

10:01 PM on 03/30/2010

The law is constitutional. I know how upsetting it is but the law is constitutional. Everyone knows it. That is why they have to defend it. Don't worry we will repeal it this year.

J

[taddles]

04:56 PM on 03/30/2010

Uh not much of an issue since Collin Powell has revered himself on DADT and has held this position for quite some time. I'm sure this discrepancy has been vociferously pointed out in the opposing brief.

[jcwtts1]

04:52 PM on 03/30/2010

Remain calm people. The DOJ is doing its job. It is defending constitutional laws. I believe we are near the finish line for a repeal of DADT, but legal challenges to it are going to be answered by the DOJ. The law is constitutional, sad as that fact is, and as such the DOJ has a responsibility to defend it. If you had asked anyone a month ago whether the DOJ would defend it the answer is yes. If you ask them 2 months from now the answer will still be yes. The reality is that until we repeal the law it is constitutional. The supreme court holds that LGBT are not protected by strict scrutiny and as such are subject to discriminatory laws. It was a crazy decision in the 80s it is still a crazy decision, unfortunately it is binding. A reversal of that decision would make every single anti lgbt law unconstitutional. But we don't have that. We're stuck with what we have and the only solution to DADT is to pass a law reversing it.

J

[taddles]

04:57 PM on 03/30/2010

^^^^^^^ This ^^^^^^^

[cminca]

07:15 PM on 03/30/2010

There is a law against torture. That law is constitutional.

If the DOJ has a responsibilty to defend that law, why hasn't it gone after those who broke the law?

The department is picking and choosing what it is defending, and it obviously feels like defending, vigorously, the laws that the President "says" he wants to repeal. (As long as someone else does the heavy lifting of getting it to his desk.)

This is BS.

Remember everyone--Don't Ask, Don't Give

[jcwtts1]

10:02 PM on 03/30/2010

And if you go to court and get a def of torture that includes water boarding then guess what, you'll have a case. Go get it. Then come talk to me. The department isn't picking and choosing. It is doing what it does. This is a constitutional law that has withstood 15 years of challenges to it. The DOJ has the obligation to defend it. They aren't picking and choosing the Supremes picked and choose.

J

[TheHandyman]

04:42 PM on 03/30/2010

That the DOJ would defend the indefensible using lies, distortion, circular arguments is certainly the way to bring back all the respect and confidence by the People in a system that was so corrupted by the idealogues put there by Rove. I wonder, how many of the lawyers from the right-wing Christian Law Schools are still working in the Justice Department. Has Obama done anything about this? Believe me, these things do not happen without Obama's knowledge. No President is going to have his appointees doing something contrary to his stated positions and policies without their consent.

Gays have always served in the military. They have never been anything near the problem that rightwing religious, and lets be absolutely open about where all this nonsense comes from, nuts would like us to believe. The only problem that being gay in the military has ever caused is when homophobic religious zealots have beateb or murdered a fellow service man or woman because they were either gay or were thought to be gay.

I served in Viet Nam with gays and they were as fine and devoted a soldier as there ever was. For Powell to have said what he did abouts gays was as unforgiveable and is despicable as his lies before the UN about the threat Iraq posed to the US. To use those comments as a defense of the indefensible is shameful!

[Pucifer]

05:26 PM on 03/30/2010

Well said, sir.

[Pucifer]

04:11 PM on 03/30/2010

Here we go again... DOJ sez it has to defend these laws, trots out vicious, inane right-wing talking points ("Sexual tension!") to back their arguments, blah blah blah.

[taddles]

04:58 PM on 03/30/2010

Until the law is changed it's their job to defend it.

[Pucifer]

05:25 PM on 03/30/2010

So it is their job to make up lies about gay people who want to serve honorably in the military?

[naschkatze]

06:11 PM on 03/30/2010

Are you a Jesuit by chance?

[T2inDC]

04:02 PM on 03/30/2010

One senior White House official, staff secretary Lisa Brown, later said it was her personal view that those cases should not have been in that brief. In the wake of the flap, Obama also promised that the administration would be more careful.

"I want to add, we have a duty to uphold existing law, but I believe we must do so in a way that does not exacerbate old divides," Obama said at a reception with gay leaders later that month.

The Obama Administration isn't being too careful here. This is why we have to have members of the military chain themselves to the White House fence to get the Presidents attention. He is forgetting about us, but at least the American people support honest service. It is time we allow all servicemembers the honor and integrity of honest service. There is no defense for this unconsitutional law that specifically discriminates aganist honorable and skilled servicemember simply because of who they are.