http://help.senate.gov/Hearings/2009_11_05/2009_11_05.html

The Democratic-led Congress is considering repealing the 1993 law but isn’t expected to act on the issue until early next year.

In the meantime, the Nevada Democrat is asking President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates to share their views and recommendations on the controversial policy.

In Sept. 24 letters to Obama and Gates, Reid also asked for a review of the cases of two U.S. officers who were discharged from the military because of their sexuality.

“At a time when we are fighting two wars, I do not believe we can afford to discharge any qualified individual who is willing to serve our country,” Reid wrote in identical letters to Obama and Gates that were obtained Friday by The Associated Press.

Obama signaled during last year’s election campaign that he supported repealing the law. But to the chagrin of his gay-rights supporters, he has made no move to do so since taking office in January. The White House has said it will not stop the military from dismissing gays and lesbians who acknowledge their sexuality.

Last year, 634 members of the military were discharged for being gay, or .045 percent of the active-duty U.S. force, according to an Aug. 14 congressional report.

The largest number of gays who were ousted under the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy came in 2001, when 1,227 were discharged, or .089 of the force.

The House is considering legislation to repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell” and allow people who have been discharged under the policy to rejoin the military. The law is being pushed chiefly by Rep. Patrick Murphy, D-Pa., a former captain in the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division who served in Bosnia and Iraq.

Murphy has said he does not expect congressional hearings on the policy until next year.

Senate President Therese Murray, a Democrat, said Tuesday that she supports the bill and believes there are enough votes to pass it.

Republican lawmakers have twice delayed action on the measure. They opted not to block it for a third day.

If approved, the bill would require a final vote in both chambers Wednesday before heading to Gov. Deval (deh-VAHL’) Patrick. The House gave initial approval last week.

Patrick supports the measure and could name an appointment when he signs the bill.

The appointee would serve until voters pick a permanent replacement Jan. 19 special election.

“We have one demand only,” he said. “For equal protection under the law for LGBT Americans in all matters governed by civil law in all 50 states.”

Now is the time, he said, for federal action – the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress provide us with a unique window.

His remarks came in response to local LGBT organizations who have complained that a national march siphons off energy, money and volunteers from local Congressional districts and civil rights fights.

But Jones said that “I reject the notion that there’s a finite number of volunteers at any one time. An equal amount of money is spent every weekend on major parties.”

If people are worried about money and volunteers, he said, then they should focus on growing the movement.

“A historic opportunity is open to us. It would be foolish and short-sighted not to push [for LGBT rights] on a Federal level. It is simply a matter of fact: true equality can only come from the Federal Government.”

Cleve said that he was “tired of the laundry list of individual demands that allow legislators to prioritize and compromise.” He is advocating for an ominibus bill similar to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibited discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin.

But Jones said he’d also be happy with individual bills that added up to a package of full civil rights.

**A reminder – 365gay will be at the March!**

We will have a meet up with other readers at Armand’s in DC at 7 pm on Sat. Oct. 10 (that’s the day before the march). It’s an all-you-can-eat buffet with pizza, salad and drinks for $12 each – but we need to give them a headcount by next week. So email me at jennifer.vanasco@ logostaff.com if you’d like to meet readers and (hopefully) some writers!

From Change.org:

In July 2009, Coakley filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government challenging the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).  In the lawsuit, Coakley said that DOMA undermined states’ efforts to recognize marriages between same-sex couples, and “codified an animus towards gay and lesbian people.”

“Our familes, our communities, and even our economy have seen the many important benefits that have come from recognizing equal marriage rights and, frankly, no downside,” Coakley said when filing the lawsuit.  “However, we have also seen how many of our married residents and their families are being hurt by a discriminatory, unprecedented, and, we believe, unconstitutional law.”

 The primary election for Kennedy’s U.S. Senate seat will be held on December 8, with a general election scheduled for January 19, 2010.

“Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) says the Senate is swamped and has little time on the schedule for this fight. The Pentagon brass is reticent and wants a go-slow strategy, while a majority of the rank and file in the military opposes changing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law. With no Republican co-sponsors for a repeal, key moderate Democrats such as Sens. Jim Webb of Virginia and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas remain uncommitted.

And the Senate’s patron saint of this cause, Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), died before being able to introduce long-promised bipartisan legislation to overturn “don’t ask, don’t tell”.

And absent a big push from the Pentagon and Obama, key Senate Democrats are signaling that there is little appetite to anger some of their more socially conservative voters at a time when election forecasters are signaling a tough 2010 election cycle for the party.”

Still, the Senate Armed Services Committee will hold hearings on the ban this fall – the first since 1993, thanks to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, the NY Senator who has become one of our most stalwart supporters after taking over Hillary Clinton’s seat.

The son of the country’s most famous Catholic family defied church teachings when he divorced his first wife, then was granted an annulment only after he admitted he wasn’t being honest when he promised her he’d be faithful. His most significant and public break with the church came with his support for abortion rights.

Yet Kennedy also advocated for signature Catholic causes, such as help for the poor, health care and immigration reform, and opposition to the Iraq war. His faith remained a regular part of his life until it ended this week with a priest at his bedside.

The apparently conflicting portrait of a man loyal to the church despite widening disagreement on key issues “almost perfectly represents” the views of most American Catholics, said Boston College professor Alan Wolfe.

“He’s an effect of a process that’s been going on for a very long time that started long before Teddy Kennedy was born and will continue long after Teddy Kennedy is dead,” Wolfe said.

Kennedy’s mother, Rose Kennedy, set the roots of his faith, emphasizing Christ’s teaching in the Gospels that “to whom much is given, much will be required.” When her kids were teens, she made sure they went to a weekend religious camp every year, even if they’d rather be sailing, said Adam Clymer, who worked with Kennedy on his biography. She took them to church during the week, so they knew church wasn’t just for Sundays.

In his eulogy during her 1995 funeral, Kennedy called his mother’s faith “the greatest gift she gave us.”

A commitment to Catholicism was not always evident in Kennedy’s personal life, which was marred by problems with alcohol and philandering. In 1983, he was forbidden from receiving communion after his divorce – which the church forbids – from his first wife, Joan.

The public learned more than a decade later that he’d been granted an annulment after he was seen accepting Communion at his mother’s funeral. Joan later said that Kennedy requested the annulment, which she did not oppose, on grounds that his marriage vow to be faithful had not been honestly made, Clymer said.

Kennedy never discussed his annulment and also rarely spoke publicly of his Catholicism.

“I think faith oftentimes is deeply felt in the marrow of your bones, it’s a matter of the heart,” said Kennedy’s friend, the Rev. Gerry Creedon, a Washington-area priest. “He had trouble articulating his inner feelings, his deepest conviction and matters of emotion, the heart.”

One of Kennedy’s longest discussions of his faith came in 1983 in an unlikely place – political foe Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University:

“I am an American and a Catholic; I love my country and treasure my faith,” Kennedy said. “But I do not assume that my conception of patriotism or policy is invariably correct, or that my convictions about religion should command any greater respect than any other faith in this pluralistic society. I believe there surely is such a thing as truth, but who among us can claim a monopoly on it?”

In the same speech, Kennedy referred to abortion, criticizing some religious people for wanting government to “tell citizens how to live uniquely personal parts of their lives.” His pro-abortion rights stance was a flip from early in his career and tough for many Catholics to accept, even those who admire his other work in other areas they consider “pro-life” – such as anti-war, anti-poverty and anti-death penalty causes.

“There’s this big, ‘What if?’” said Catholic author Michael Sean Winters. “If Ted Kennedy had stuck to his pro-life position, would both the (Democratic) party and the country have embraced the abortion on demand policies that we have now? And I don’t think so.”

Russell Shaw, former spokesman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said when Kennedy defied the church on issues such as abortion and later, gay marriage, he reinforced a corrosive belief among Catholics that they can simply ignore teachings they don’t agree with.

Kennedy’s differences with the church never kept him from Mass. When he was in Washington, Kennedy would attend Blessed Sacrament Church in Chevy Chase, Md., and sometimes stop in at St. Joseph’s on Capitol Hill, said Susan Gibbs, spokeswoman for the Washington Archdiocese. In his last days, Kennedy leaned hard on his faith. Creedon said he visited with Kennedy last Friday, offering him a blessing and praying the Lord’s Prayer with him.

“He just was a man of deep piety and devotion, as well as public commitments in the area of the Gospel,” Creedon said.

Kennedy’s relationship with the Catholic church was rocky, Shaw said, but there’s no doubt it was enduring. Judging the quality of Kennedy’s faith isn’t for him, he said.

“Now it’s up to God,” he said.

The panel voted 13-6 in favor of Sotomayor, with just one Republican, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, joining Democrats to support her. The nearly party-line tally masked deeper political divisions within GOP ranks about confirming President Barack Obama’s first high court nominee.

“I’m deciding to vote for a woman I would not have chosen,” Graham said. Obama’s choice to nominate the first-ever Latina to the highest court is “a big deal,” he added, declaring that, “America has changed for the better with her selection.”

The solid Republican vote against Sotomayor on the Judiciary panel reflected the choice many GOP conservatives have made to side with their core supporters and oppose a judge they charge will bring liberal bias and racial and gender prejudices to her decisions. Others in the party, however, are concerned that doing so could hurt their efforts to broaden their base, and particularly alienate Hispanic voters, a fast-growing segment of the electorate.

Democrats, for their part, are lining up solidly in favor of the 55-year-old federal appeals court judge, the daughter of Puerto Rican parents who was raised in a South Bronx housing project and educated in the Ivy League.

“There’s not one example – let alone a pattern – of her ruling based on bias or prejudice or sympathy,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the Judiciary Committee chairman. “She has administered justice without favoring one group of persons over another.”

The senior Republican, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, countered that Sotomayor’s speeches and a few of her rulings show she would let her opinions interfere in decisions.

“In speech after speech, year after year, Judge Sotomayor set forth a fully formed, I believe, judicial philosophy that conflicts with the great American tradition of blind justice and fidelity to the law as written,” Sessions said.

The hearings come at the prompting of Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) after she realized she would be unable to secure the votes needed for an amendment to the Military Reauthorization Act which would instruct the Department of Defense to stop investigating servicemembers for being gay.

Congressional action might lessen pressure on the White House, says the Daily Beast – the Palm Center, which in May released a report suggesting President Obama could use stop-loss to halt gay discharges, is expected to issue new research this week called, “A Self-Inflicted Wound: How and Why Gays Give the White House a Free Pass on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

Since Obama took office, 265 men and women have been dismissed under the military ban. Sixty-nine percent of Americans believe the ban should be lifted.

Read the full Daily Beast story by Jason Bellini.

The Senate bill also would make it easier for federal prosecutors to step in when state or local authorities are unable or unwilling to pursue hate crimes.

“The Senate made a strong statement this evening that hate crimes have no place in America,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said after the chamber voted Thursday to attach the legislation as an amendment to a $680 billion defense spending bill expected to be completed next week.

The House in April approved a similar bill and President Barack Obama has urged Congress to send him hate crimes legislation, presenting the best scenario for the measure to become law since Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., first introduced it more than a decade ago.

Kennedy, being treated for cancer and unable to attend the vote, said in a statement that the bill “closes the flagrant loopholes that for too long have prevented effective prosecution of these shocking crimes that terrorize entire groups of communities across America.”

Republicans will have the opportunity to propose several more changes to the hate crimes bill on Monday, but that will not change its status as part of the must-pass defense bill.

Passage of the bill would effect the most significant extension of hate crimes law since Congress first acted in 1968 after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

The 1968 law defines hate crimes as those carried out on the basis of race, color, religion or national origin. It also limits federal involvement to when the victim is engaged in a narrow range of activities, including attending a public school, serving as a juror or participating in an event administered by a state or local government.

The proposed legislation expands federal hate crimes to include those perpetrated against people because of gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability. It also removes restrictions on federally protected activities.

“There is no room in our society for these acts of prejudice,” said Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore. “Hate crimes fragment and isolate our communities. They tear at our collective spirit.”

Some 45 states have hate crime statutes, and investigations and prosecutions would remain mainly in state and local hands. But the bill provides federal grants to help state and local officials with the costs of prosecuting hate crimes and funds programs to combat hate crimes committed by juveniles. The federal government can step in after the Justice Department certifies that a state does not have jurisdiction or is unable to carry out justice.

Joe Solmonese, president of Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay rights group, said it “will provide police and sheriff’s departments with the tools and resources they need to ensure that entire communities are not terrorized by hate violence.”

The Senate approved the measure by voice vote after a 63-28 procedural vote was needed to allow its consideration as part of the defense bill. The 28 no votes were all Republicans. Five Republicans voted for it, giving supporters the 60 votes they needed.

Opponents of the bill, including conservative religious groups, argued that it infringes on states’ rights and could intimidate free speech.

“The bill could potentially imperil the free speech rights of Christians who choose to speak out against homosexuality – which could even be extended to preaching against it,” The Christian Coalition of America said in a statement.

Supporters countered that prosecutions under the bill can occur only when bodily injury is involved, and no minister or protester could be targeted for expressing opposition to homosexuality, even if their statements are followed by another person committing a violent action.

To emphasize the point, the Senate passed provisions restating that the bill does not prohibit constitutionally protected speech and that free speech is guaranteed unless it is intended to plan or prepare for an act of violence.

The bill is named for Matthew Shepard, a gay Wyoming college student who was murdered in 1998.

The FBI receives reports of nearly 8,000 hate crimes each year. Of those, about 15 percent are linked to sexual orientation, which ranks third after those involving race and religion.