As gay activists organize against the administration’s reluctance to commit to repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell this year, Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO) — a member of the critical Senate Armed Services Committee — is saying that Democrats are “within a vote or two” of including repeal legislation in this year’s Defense Authorization bill. Yesterday, Udall hosted a press conference to reiterate his support for ending the policy this year:

The Pentagon is studying how to implement an end to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and while I agree that is a necessary step, I also believe strongly that we must repeal it this year. I will continue to work with other senators to ensure that the repeal is included in the Defense Authorization bill, which will be marked up in the Senate Armed Services Committee next month. But we still face an uphill battle, and we will need a bipartisan push to clinch this urgent effort. The stories these dismissed service members told me today are extremely powerful and compelling, and they’ll help as I urge my colleagues to support repeal. The countless men and women who currently are unable to serve our country honestly deserve a change. And I believe it’s imperative for our national security.

“I’m going to push everybody possible to see this happens this year. We’ve had this discussion long enough,” Udall told the Denver Post. “The Pentagon has taken some big forward steps that they’ve never been willing to take. I don’t under estimate the steps they’re taking, but in the end we need to change the law.”

Indeed, when Secretary of Defense Robert Gates first announced the formation of the study group in February, Udall proposed that Congress move concurrently with the study and has since co-sponsored Sen. Joe Lieberman’s (I-CT) repeal legislation that would end the policy within 13 months of enactment and set benchmarks for the Pentagon’s ongoing review. To the frustration of many, however, President Obama has yet to endorse the measure or recommit to ending the policy this year. During today’s White House Press conference, Gibbs said the administration would wait for the Pentagon to complete its review before pushing for repeal.

Yesterday, veterans discharged under the Military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy handcuffed themselves to the White House fence to protest the administration’s refusal to ending the policy before the end of the year. Park Police responded to the incident by closing down Lafayette Park and moving reporters “more than 300 feet back from the activists handcuffed to the fence in front of the north side of the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue.” On Tuesday, “the U.S. Park Police and the U.S. Secret Service Uniformed Division provided contradictory accounts of who ordered the move,” but today, the Park Police officially apologized, saying it had “screwed up.” “We had some young officers who, when they were told to move the people back — which we typically do when we’re going to make arrests – they moved the people back a lot further than we typically do,” said Park Police spokesman David Schlosser. “That was a rookie, amateur error and they screwed up on that.”

This afternoon, The Advocate’s Kerry Eleveld joked with Press Secretary Robert Gibbs about the incident and asked if the recent protests suggested to the White House that it had underestimated the LGBT community’s patience with the process to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Gibbs admitted that the Park Police engaged in “some overzealous actions” and reiterated the president’s long standing commitment to ending the policy. But when Evelveld asked if the administration is committed to letting the Pentagon study group complete its work before Congress acts on repeal legislation, Gibbs said that it was, effectively precluding any chance of ending the policy this year:

ELEVELD: He’s committed to letting the Pentagon work through it’s working group process until December 1st, is that true? He’s committed to that?

GIBBS: Yes. The president has set forth a process with the chair of the Joint Chiefs and with the Secretary of Defense to work through this issue.

ELEVELD: Before any legislative action is taken. That rules out legislative action this year.

GIBBS: Well, again — the House and the Senate are obviously a different branch of government. The President has a process and a proposal I think that he believes is the best way forward to seeing, again, the commitment that he’s made for many years in trying to — changing that law.

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Indeed, with the military committed to maintaining the policy until it finished its review on December 1st, the White House has been reluctant to lobby moderate senators to include repeal legislation in this year’s defense authorization act.

During his State of the Union, however, Obama pledged, “This year — this year, I will work with Congress and our military to finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are. It’s the right thing to do.” Similarly, at the Human Rights Campaign fundraiser in October, the president said he understood activists’ frustration with the slow process of repeal and urged them to continue lobbying leaders.

“Now, I’ve said this before, I’ll repeat it again — it’s not for me to tell you to be patient, any more than it was for others to counsel patience to African Americans petitioning for equal rights half a century ago,” he said. “And that’s why it’s so important that you continue to speak out, that you continue to set an example, that you continue to pressure leaders — including me — and to make the case all across America,” Obama added.

The Dallas Voice is reporting that activists with GetEQUAL — the same group that interrupted President Obama during a fundraiser and handcuffed activists to the White House fence yesterday to force the administration to repeal DADT by the end of the year — disrupted a House Education and Labor Committee hearing this morning to demand that the committee mark-up the Employer Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). The committee is already expected to hold hearings on the measure this week or next and the bill could get a vote in the House shortly thereafter.

As Chairman George Miller (D-CA) began today’s hearing on reforming the juvenile justice system, an activist with a ‘Get Equal Pass ENDA’ sign came up and asked him to accept a mark-up marker. Miller refused:

MILLER: And to hear from a series of witnesses on the…

PROTESTER 1: With all do respect, Chairman Miller, as a constituent of your state of California, I’m here demanding you no longer delay a mark-up…

MILLER: We’re not delaying the mark-up and thank you.

PROTESTER 1: I would just like to deliver this marker I don’t know if it’s because of the recession that you guys you can’t afford markers, or whatever the issue is, but in our community there are people being fired because they are lesbian, gay, bi and transgender.

MILLER: As you know, we are working very hard on that legislation...I will not accept the marker. We’re working on that as expeditiously as we can, thank you very much. I appreciate it, thank you.

PROTESTER 2: From Texas, Virginia…Chairman, I can be fired for being gay.

MILLER: I understand that, and that’s why we’re proceeding with the legislation.

UNIDENTIFIED LAWMAKER: This is the problem with this. There’s no end to it. You’re never going to satisfy them all.. [...]

MILLER: We are working on it which we expect to bring to mark-up rather quickly. It’s not an easy piece of legislation, it’s a fairly compliated piece of legislation. We want to get it right. But we expect to have it before this committee in the very near future.

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I speculated on the effectiveness of GetEQUAL’s activism around Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell here and the “unidentified lawmaker’s” comments reiterate the concern that the group’s in-your-face disruption may alienate more moderate or conservative lawmakers and cause them to triple question their votes.

Direct activism has its place in this struggle, but at a moment when Democrats have overwhelming majorities, it seems misplaced. As Bridgette LaVictoire of Lez Get Real observes, “This is about political chess. The time of civil disobedience may one day come. That I will not doubt and will not deny. That time is not now. LGBT Militancy in a time of increased Right Wing Militancy will not get our voices heard- they will get our voices shut down.”