The Advantages of Gay Soldiers Coming Out While DADT is Enjoined

[ArcticFox]

One big argument of the government, if not the biggest argument, in favor of DADT is that suddenly allowing openly gay service (i.e., not enforcing DADT) would cause big problems. Now, at the moment DADT is suddenly not being enforced.

It would seem to undermine the government's core argument then if gay service members become open about their sexuality en masse and no great disruption occurs. When the appeal reaches the Ninth Circuit, if the government has to admit that there are then many many openly gay service members, yet no great disruption has occurred, there will be even less evidence that the DADT policy should be reinstated.

This is fully understanding that the military is threating those who do come out with expulsion if the policy is ever reinstated. However this may be the best chance ever of ending the policy once and for all.

If this goes to the Supreme Court, there's a pretty good chance DADT becomes the law of the land once again. President Obama will have no chance of repealing DADT in the congress. They already tried that and failed. It will be no easier the second time.

Discussion greatly welcomed.

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. They still need to rewrite

The UCMJ, as this has criminalizes this with jail time.

As is right now it is dead, but it has brought us back to that law.

I realize this is not popular, and the military is looking at rewriting the article in question.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

2. Hopefully, Congress can get it done before it goes to SCOTUS

That being said, it would be interesting to see what would happen if every gay and lesbian service member "outed" themselves in a simultaneous "mass outing". I imagine that it would be impossible to discharge so many active duty soldiers at one time. It's kind of impractical to see that actually happening but it'd sure make it impossible to keep the policy going in any meaningful and consistent way.

[GodlessBiker]

3. It's like LGBT folks getting married in CA when it was legal. They stayed married after Prop 8.