Yesterday's Pentagon survey showing that an overwhelming number of American service members are supportive or indifferent to allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly essentially destroyed whatever remained of the empirical case against repeal. That leaves repeal opponents resorting to excuses that are weak to the point of absurdity:
"I think it's going to take a period of time," Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), the top Republican on the House Intelligence Commitee, said yesterday before the report came out, according to The Hill. "This is something that should move over to the next Congress."
Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) who is among those Republicans strongly opposed to repealing the ban no matter what military leaders and the commander-in-chief says, told Politico that since the Pentagon survey didn't ask service members if they thought the policy should be ended -- only if ending it would cause problems on the frontlines -- the Pentagon report is all but useless.
They're not even seizing on the minor pieces of evidence against repeal I pointed out yesterday -- they're just making transparent process arguments and in Graham's case, simply ignoring the results altogether while insisting that the right to serve be premised on a show of hands.
The political path the White House took to repealing DADT was completely understandable -- between Congress and the military, the administration wanted to satisfy as many of the political stakeholders as possible to maximize their chances of success. The problem is, as Gabriel Arana notes, that putting so much emphasis on the military's views really reinforced the idea that putting people's fundamental rights up to a show of hands was completely appropriate. So even with the survey results as clear as they are, opponents are still using service members' opinions as an alibi.
