Kyle at Right Wing Watch transcribes an interview with the American Family Associations' Bryan Fischer in which Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty supports reinstating DADT (via Ben Smith):
Fischer: One last question, got about forty five seconds left, put you on the hot seat one more time: we just saw the ban on homosexual service in the military repealed, overturned. Conservatives will be working over the next couple of years to see that that ban is reinstated. If you become president in 2012, will you work to reinstate the prohibition on open homosexual service in the military? Would you sign such a prohibition if it got to your desk?
Pawlenty: Bryan, I have been a public and repeat supporter of maintaining Don't Ask, Don't Tell. There's a lot of reasons for that, but if you look at how the combat commanders and the combat units feel about it, the results of those kinds of surveys were different than the ones that were mostly reported in the newspaper and that is something I think we need to pay attention to. But I have been a public supporter of maintaining Don't Ask, Don't Tell and I would support reinstating it as well.
The military was overwhelmingly supportive or indifferent to ending DADT, and while combat units were far more concerned, the concerns melted away for service members in combat units who believed they had served alongside gays and lesbians.
The other thing is that there's no possible way to justify reinstating DADT using the reasons many opposed repeal, such as preventing chaos or distractions in the military during wartime. Could anything be more chaotic than repealing DADT for a couple of years, than abruptly reinstating it? All those service members who had revealed their sexual orientation would have to be ejected.
Republicans, knowing that DADT was unpopular, argued against repeal by saying liberals were placing their social views before military efficacy. But reinstating DADT would cause so many problems that it's impossible to defend on those terms. The circumstances would be reversed, with conservatives putting their own, far less defensible social views on discriminating against gays and lesbians before the needs of the services.
It won't happen -- this is just Pawlenty throwing red meat to the base. But it's kind of mystifying that homophobia remains enough of a litmus test for the Republican presidential nomination that Pawlenty would feel obligated to say he supports putting DADT back in place.
