Asked about her position on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell during tonight’s Nevada Senate debate, Sharron Angle began by saying that lawmakers should defer the decision over wether or not to repeal the policy to the military, but then tried to conflate open service with same-sex marriage:

ANGLE: The policies within the military, especially this one are under review right now. And we should be waiting for the review of our military to make those decisions, not jumping ahead and making those decisions as Senator Reid tried to do when he put a provision of that provision in the defense bill. We and here in Nevada have been very careful to define marriage as between a man and a woman through two general elections. Over 70% of the population has voted to define marriage as between a man and a woman. I support what Mevada has done and I will represent our constituents on that basis.

Watch it:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) responded by suggesting that Angle “does not understand what went on in Washington” and reiterated that under the amendment included in the National Defense Authorization Act, DADT is not repealed until, President Obama, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen “certified it would not hurt our defense.”

Angle, still unclear on how the amendment works, responded with: “We should be looking at that review before we make bills based on that review. So the review needs to come first and then the bill. I submit to you that I do know the proces. The process is, read the bill first, then pass it.“

This morning, federal employees who are insured through the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) Program received an email from Aetna advertising their new pet insurance plans. “In these challenging economic times, it’s good to know you can get some financial protection for unexpected illness and injury to your pets,” the e-mail reads before listing the many benefits:

The insurance is a handsome perk for those who can afford it, but what’s illuminating about the ad is that while federal employees can buy pet insurance “in these challenging economic times,” LGBT workers are still prohibited from purchasing policies for their partners or spouses by the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) — a federal law which denies federal benefits to legally married same sex couples.

President Obama supports repealing DOMA (although the administration is currently defending the policy in court), but hasn’t pressured Congress to repeal the Act. Last year, he issued a memorandum instructing federal agencies to “conduct a thorough review of the benefits they provide and to identify any that could be extended to LGBT employees and their partners and families” within the scope of current law and has since ordered federal agencies to “extend a host of benefits to their employees’ same-sex domestic partners.” These benefits include: long-term health insurance, credit union membership; access to fitness facilities, planning and counseling services (including briefings on employee pay and allowances, career counseling and retirement counseling.

There are currently two separate bills in the House and Senate to provide full federal benefits to same sex domestic partners of federal employee. Last year, the legislation was voted out of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on a bipartisan basis (Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) co-sponsored the measure), but Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) — the bill’s chief sponsor — has promised not to move this on the floor of the Senate “until we get the explicit offsets” from OPM. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the legislation would cost approximately $310 million through 2020 and benefit some 30,000 employees with same-sex partners.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee approved a similar domestic partner benefits bill in November of 2009.

Moments after the Justice Department asked a district court judge to stay her injunction of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell so that it could appeal the decision, President Obama told young voters at an MTV-sponsored town hall that the policy should be repealed by Congress, not through an executive order or the courts.

Distinguishing himself from President Harry Truman — who desegregated the armed forces via executive order in 1948 — Obama explained that “the difference between my position right now and Harry Truman’s was that Congress explicitly passed a law that took away the power of the executive branch to end this policy unilaterally. So this is not a situation in which with a stroke of a pen I can simply end a policy.” Obama stressed that he’s been able to convince Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen to support repeal and promised that the policy would end “on my watch”:

OBAMA: I agree with the basic principle that anybody who wants to serve in our armed forces and make sacrifices on our behalf, on behalf of our national security — anybody should be able to serve. And they shouldn’t have to lie about who they are in order to serve. So we are moving in the direction of ending this policy. It has to be done in a way that is orderly because we are involved in a war right now. But, this is not a question of whether the policy will end. This policy will end and it will end on my watch. But I do have an obligation to make sure that I’m following some of the rules. I can’t simply ignore laws that are out there, I’ve got to work to make sure that they are changed.

Watch it:

LGBT activists and Democratic lawmakers however, have argued that Obama could use his stop-loss authority to issue an order prohibiting the Secretary of Defense from establishing, implementing, or applying any personnel or administrative policies on the basis of sexual orientation or, alternatively, fail to appeal the recent federal district court ruling if he believes that the policy was unconstitutional. Obama, however, has previously said that it is.

During the town hall, Obama spoke about the recent bullying of LGBT teens and expressed support for legislation that would criminalize such behavior. He also said that he didn’t think being gay or transexual was a choice. “I don’t think it’s a choice,” he said. “I think that people are born with a certain make-up and we are all children of God. We don’t make determination about who we love and that’s why I think discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is wrong.”

Moments ago, the Obama Justice Department asked Judge Virginia Phillips to stay her broad injunction barring the military from enforcing the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy until it has an opportunity to appeal the decision to the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. From the Advocate’s Kerry Eleveld:

Sources said Justice Department attorneys are expected to file the request to U.S. district judge Virginia A. Phillips in Riverside, Calif. this afternoon.

Should Phillips deny the request for a stay, government attorneys are expected to file an emergency request to the U.S. court of appeals for the ninth circuit.

Repeal advocates have argued that while the Department of Justice has an obligation to defend existing law, “it would be inaccurate to characterize this common practice as a mandatory requirement that DOJ must always defend federal laws in all cases, without exception.” As DADT scholar Nathaniel Frank explained, “The court case, I think, is one of the more likely now, for the President to say, this actually is unconstitutional and although there is a tradition of defending standing law, it’s not obligated to defend a policy that it believes is unconstitutional.”

But in the days since Republicans and two Democrats successfully filibustered repeal in the Senate (the measure passed the House in May), it’s become increasingly clear that Obama still believes that the policy is, in fact, constitutional. Obama has consistently argued that he would continue to try to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell through the legislative process to accommodate the work of the Pentagon’s ongoing review. “I don’t think it’s too much to ask, to say ‘Let’s do this in an orderly way’ — to ensure, by the way, that gays and lesbians who are serving honorably in our armed forces aren’t subject to harassment and bullying and a whole bunch of other stuff once we implement the policy,” Obama told Rolling Stone magazine in late September. The request for a stay comes a day after Secretary of Defense Robert Gates warned that ending the ban is “an action that needs to be taken by the Congress and that it is an action that requires careful preparation, and a lot of training.” “It has enormous consequences for our troops,” Gates said.

Earlier today, The Palm Center submitted a FOIA request to the Department of Defense for any reports or information related to negative or “extreme consequences” from this injunction period of open service and Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that the Pentagon was working on new guidelines to be released in the near future about how to deal with the injunction. Also, today, Dan Woods, the lead attorney in the case sent a letter to the Department of Justice citing a New York Times story claiming that Omar Lopez, a gay veteran, was prohibited from reinlisting. If the Times story is accurate, Woods says, “the Defense Department would appear to be in violation of the Court’s injunction and subject to citation for contempt.” SLDN also reported this afternoon that it had learned that an email was sent to JAG officers in the U.S. Air Force suggesting that the military was preparing to comply with the injunction. “At present, the United States Government is contemplating whether to appeal and to seek a stay of the injunction. In the meantime, effective 12 October, the Department of Defense will abide by its terms,” it read.

The DOJ’s stay request comes after intense lobbying from House and Senate Democrats — including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — to allow the ruling to stand and seems to contradict Obama’s promise to end the policy before the end of the year, a pledge administration officials reiterated as recently as September 23.

Obama could still begin the process of ending the policy this year by using his “stop loss” authority to issue an order prohibiting the Secretary of Defense from establishing, implementing, or applying any personnel or administrative policies on the basis of sexual orientation. Or, the Senate could try to pass the measure after the Pentagon completes its review of the policy in December.

John Aravosis catches a leak from the Pentagon’s Working Group studying Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell at the very bottom of this Los Angeles Times article about the recent court ruling overturning the policy:

The Pentagon task force charged with examining the issue is “well along” in formulating recommendations, and the ruling is not expected to affect its work, another senior military officer.

The task force found deep resistance to the idea of repealing the law in some elements of the armed services, especially within the combat units, an officer familiar with the findings said. But the surveys also have found segments of the military who were not overly worried about allowing gays and lesbians to serve, the officer said.

“What else do you expect the Pentagon to do?” he asks. “Their commander in chief is a pushover. They can do whatever they want, and they know he won’t touch them.” Indeed, Obama has been deferential to the military on DADT, agreeing to completely accommodate the review and resisting calls to set a moratorium on additional discharges, which the Pentagon opposes.

Factions within the Pentagon — including the service chiefs — support the ban and have attempted to undermine or delay Obama’s stated policy preference. In a direct response to this story, however, Pentagon officials told me that they were not aware of any leaks out of the Working Group, and say that it has been brought to their attention.

Relatively little is known about the results of the study, which are due out the first week of December. Last month, during Gen. James Amos’ confirmation hearings to become the Marine Corps’ 35th Commandant, Amos said that many Marines were hesitant to change the policy. Similarly, the Working Group has reported that a relatively modest percentage of servicemembers and their spouses responded to surveys about lifting the ban, suggesting that many military members may not be very concerned about the change.