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Mary Beth Maxwell, the founding executive director of American Rights at Work, is reportedly under consideration to serve as labor secretary in the Obama administration. (Photo courtesy of American Rights at Work)
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HOME > NEWS > NATIONAL NEWS
By: CHRIS JOHNSON COMMENTS
 
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be part of American foreign policy.”
Another Obama nomination that could affect gays is Defense Secretary Robert Gates, a holdover from the Bush administration.
As head of the Defense Department, Gates would have a voice in deciding how to implement Obama’s campaign promise to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” a law approved by Congress in 1993 that prohibits open gays from serving in the military.
Aubrey Sarvis, executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, said he “absolutely” believes that his organization would have a better working relationship with Gates under the Obama administration than it did under the Bush administration.
“I’m anticipating that there will be a more receptive and open Defense Department and that we will have new opportunities to engage with the secretary and his team,” he said.
Sarvis said he expects that “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” would be on the agenda in the next Congress and that Gates and his new team would make a recommendation to the White House on this issue.
People in about six to eight other positions at the Defense Department, such as the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, would also have a voice on the issue, Sarvis said.
The Defense Department did not respond this week to a request for comment on how Gates would handle Obama’s promise to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
While the Washington Times quoted Sarvis as saying that he expects 2009 to be a year for “foundation building and reaching consensus” on the issue of overturning “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” Sarvis said the Times did not fully quote him.
“I said it was quite possible that there would be a window for us to move this bill in 2009 if we had the votes lined up, if we had the hearings behind us and the major players were in alignment,” he said.
Sarvis said the Times did not include the full quote “because it didn’t fit in with their story line.”
A “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal could be part of the fiscal year 2011 defense budget request, which is scheduled to be released in spring of 2010, Sarvis said. He noted the advantage of including this language in the defense authorization process is that the repeal then becomes a recommendation of the department and the burden shifts to opponents to take suc
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