As chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-CA) now says that the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is settled and won’t be revisited, even if Republicans win over the White House and Senate in the November elections:
MCKEON: We fought that fight. [My goal is to] get the things that our warfighters need. That’s not something that I would personally bring up. [In 1994,] they expected us to pull off miracles. That’s not how things work. I’d rather focus on money for defense.
But that’s not to say McKeon won’t allow Defense bills to impede LGBT equality. When he assumed control of the committee in 2010, he vowed to pass clean defense bills “not weighed down” by social issues. Since then, he has allowed numerous anti-gay amendments to be added to defense spending bills. These measures, like prohibiting chaplains from performing same-sex marriages or offering a “license to bully” for troops, would have the same cultural effect of imposing invisibility upon gay and lesbian troops as DADT did.
No doubt, if Republicans insist on further imposing on the LGBT community, they will find ways to do so that McKeon can support.