Is repeal of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ dead?

The Wall Street Journal's Laura Meckler declared the Democrats' long-promised repeal of the military's ban on openly gay service "all but lost" on Monday. Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona is in talks with Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) to strip the repeal from the must-pass defense reauthorization bill, Meckler reports.

Human Rights Campaign spokesman Michael Cole tells The Upshot that his organization still thinks repeal is possible. Democratic senators will be making a mistake if they don't push for repeal, he says, since most Americans think gay people should be allowed to serve openly in the military.

"Removing 'don't ask, don't tell' is in fact not as controversial as some may claim," Cole said. "We firmly believe that there are enough votes to preserve the repeal language that's in the bill -- except a small group of senators has been afraid to even bring the bill up to a debate because they don't want to have a conversation about repeal.

"It would be a mistake to bow to the whims of a small group of senators."

Leaked results of the Pentagon's internal survey of troops showed that most of them are fine with serving with openly gay comrades.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said over the weekend that "I would like to see the repeal of 'don't ask, don't tell'" quickly, before the lame-duck Democratic Congress breaks up in January, "but I'm not sure what the prospects for that are."

President Obama said last week at a news conference that Congress should "potentially" press forward on repeal after the Pentagon study comes out Dec. 1. But as the Journal points out, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs later listed four priorities for the lame-duck session -- and repeal of "don't ask" was not among them.

Though Gates and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen support repeal, the military service chiefs all oppose it. Newly appointed Marine Commandant James Amos reiterated his opposition to the repeal over the weekend. "There's risk involved," Gen. Amos said. "I'm trying to determine how to measure that risk." (On Monday, Mullen said he was surprised at Amos' comments.)

The House has already passed the repeal, but all Senate Republicans led by McCain and a handful of Democrats blocked debate in their chamber when it came up for a vote in September.

The gay rights group Get Equal urged President Obama in an open letter in June not to confirm Amos without first assessing his opinion on the military gay policy.

Now that Obama has moved ahead with Amos' confirmation, the Marine chief's continuing opposition to repeal is likely to continue stoking the growing tensions between gay advocates and the White House.

Gay voters have already expressed their dissatisfaction with Democrats. A larger percentage of gay voters defected from Democrats to Republicans in the midterm elections than did other solidly Democratic groups, such as Hispanic, black and young voters. Ken Sherrill, an expert on the gay electorate, told The Upshot that the drop may be attributed to "dissatisfaction with the pace of change on LGB rights over the past two years."

(Photo of McCain: AP)