U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe said Wednesday she would support the repeal of the military policy that prevents gays from serving openly. The announcement came as the U.S. House of Representatives voted on repealing the policy, known as 'don't ask, don't tell.'
“After careful analysis of the comprehensive report compiled by the Department of Defense and thorough consideration of the testimony provided by the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the service chiefs, I support repeal of the 'don’t ask, don’t tell' law,” Snowe said in a statement. U.S. Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., revived repeal efforts by sponsoring a stand-alone bill minutes after a Senate vote on a larger bill that contained the provision failed last week.
There's great momentum finally behind repealing DADT in Congress after the HOUSE just passed Murphy's standalone bill that seems pretty real. If Snowe and Collins do carry out their plans then it could actually get done.
Snowe was among several theoretical supporters of repeal who said she voted against cloture because of procedural issues: Sens. Scott Brown (R-MA) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) objected to the time allotted to debate the underlying bill; and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) said that the timing for repeal was, in his view, not quite right.
Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) said, on the other hand, that she'd missed the vote because of a dental appointment. So, with Snowe's support, repeal supporters are within 1 vote of cloture -- and a repeal of DADT.
UPDATE: Please join the Courage Campaign and Rep. Murphy on a public conference call taking place at 4PM PST.
Join the Courage Campaign and Representative Patrick Murphy on a short call today at 7 p.m. EST/ 4 p.m. PST.
Sign up filling out the form here.
