WASHINGTON -- Although several military service chiefs expressed opposition to repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell, President Obama has spoken to them since the measure passed, and they are all ready to move forward expeditiously on implementing and certifying the changes.
"The President called every single service chief separately, talked to them, and they are all about moving this forward very quickly," said a White House official who helped lead the president's DADT repeal effort. "They're soldiers; they understand this is the law of the land, and they're going to get this done. They went through a process that was beyond repute to show we can do this, and I think you'll see a very, very fast process."
In a press conference on Wednesday, Obama reiterated that point, saying they "all said that we are going to implement this smartly and swiftly, and they are confident that it will not have an effect on our military effectiveness."
Although Obama signed the repeal of DADT into law today, the policy remains on the books. Obama, along with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Secretary of Defense, must issue a certification stating the Pentagon is prepared to implement the repeal in a manner that won't hurt readiness, effectiveness, cohesion or recruiting. DADT will still be law until 60 days after certification. Until then, therefore, servicemembers are still at risk of being discharged or investigated.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he will sign on to certification "only after careful consultation with the military service chiefs and our combatant commanders and when I am satisfied that those conditions have been met for all the services, commands and units."
The conservative Family Research Council (FRC), which opposed repeal, announced that it will be working with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and others to "ensure that the Pentagon is monitoring the effect of this radical change on the men and women in harm's way. One way to do that is demanding specific measurables -- like tracking the sexual assaults, dips in recruitment and retention, combat distractions, and more. If there's the slightest disruption to the military's mission, you can bet that FRC will be on the Hill, demanding to revisit this repeal."
The White House official said, however, that lawmakers can't stop the process of implementation. "Nope," they stated. "Not any more. We are done for the year, and this is over."
"It would be my hope that those senators who were opposed to repeal, and [Incoming House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck] McKeon, would come around to the reality that resistance of this kind is not going to make a difference, because this is going to happen," said Aubrey Sarvis, executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a group that was intimately involved in the push to repeal DADT. "There was enormous resistance after the Brown v. Board of Education decision, and indeed, one of the images that is still there for many who were alive then, or even students who read history, is the visual of Gov. George Wallace standing in front of the doors of the University of Alabama, physically opposing federal marshals escorting the first African-American students into the university. I hope that's not the visual Sen. McCain and Rep. McKeon are going to replicate."
Although conservatives moved forward with lawsuits to block the implementation of health care reform, R. Clarke Cooper, executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans, doesn't believe that this strategy would be effective with DADT repeal.
"Filing a suit on an internal personnel execution is odd; it's unprecedented," said Cooper, adding, "I don't see how they're going to get any traction on that at all. Any legal action that might have an effect on the implementation process is our case, which is there to ensure implementation does take place and it's done in an expeditious manner -- and thoroughly as well."
Sarvis has called on Gates to suspend all DADT investigations while certification and the review period are carried out.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) made a last-minute effort to derail DADT repeal legislation by offering an amendment that would have required all the service chiefs to certify that implementation did not compromise military readiness or unit cohesion. While several of them did not back repeal, during testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, they all said that such individual certification was unnecessary because they trusted the Defense Secretary to take their views into consideration.
Also during Wednesday's press briefing, Obama addressed the issue of marriage equality, which he still does not support, though he signaled that his views are evolving. He said it's an issue he struggles with, especially seeing his friends and staff members who are in "powerful, strong long-lasting gay or lesbian unions." "At this point, what I've said is, my baseline is a strong civil union that provides them the protections and the legal rights that married couples have," he continued. "And I think that's the right thing to do. But I recognize from their perspective, that is not enough, and I think this is something we will continue to debate, and I will wrestle with going forward."