U.S. NEWS, September 20, 2010

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U.S. NEWS
September 20, 2010
By Rex Wockner
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Senate could vote on Don't Ask, Don't Tell this week; Lady Gaga pushes repeal
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Buoyed by a federal court ruling declaring the military gay ban unconstitutional on Sept. 9 and by Lady Gaga's aggressive adoption of the cause of Don't Ask, Don't Tell repeal at MTV's Video Music Awards on Sept. 12, gay advocates stepped up their push Sept. 13 for the full U.S. Senate to vote on DADT repeal this month.

Hours later, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., announced that he's planning a vote on the defense spending bill, of which DADT repeal is a part, this week.

At one point, the afternoon of Sept. 14, Gaga and Reid communicated directly via Twitter.

Gaga tweeted: "http://twitpic.com/2ocx9i - Gay Veterans were my VMA dates. Repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell. CALL HARRY REID to Schedule Senate Vote."

Reid tweeted back: "@ladygaga There is a vote on #DADT next week. Anyone qualified to serve this country should be allowed to do so. http://bit.ly/9ucdIj."

Gaga responded: "God Bless and Thank you @HarryReid, from all of us, like u, who believe in equality and the dream of this country. We were #BORNTHISWAY."

Reid replied: "@ladygaga It's the right thing to do. Come back to Vegas soon!."

He then further tweeted: "VIDEO: @HarryReid & @LadyGaga tweet abt repealing #DADT & the fight for equality http://ow.ly/2EBfm."

Then Gaga really found her groove. On Sept. 17, she posted a seven-minute video to YouTube explaining DADT and the repeal effort in detail and showing her placing calls to her U.S. senators. Her call to Sen. Chuck Schumer terminated itself unanswered after 11 rings. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand's office hung up on her with the message: "The mailbox belonging to Senator Gillibrand's office is full. Goodbye."

"I have called both of the senators that operate in my district," Gaga said. "I will not stop calling until I reach them and I can leave them this message: 'I am a constituent of the senator. My name is Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, also known as Lady Gaga. I'm calling to ask the senator to vote with Sens. Harry Reid and Carl Levin to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell and oppose John McCain's shameless filibuster. We need to do this for our gay and lesbian soldiers.'"

Gaga advised viewers to try calling their senators the following day during business hours and said she would do the same.

The repeal measure has already passed the House of Representatives.

"Repeal proponents may well need 60 votes in the Senate to (prevent a filibuster and) get to this important debate in September," said Aubrey Sarvis, executive director of Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. "We are now in the final stretch and we must prevail. Repeal supporters should not stop calling their senators. Sen. John McCain has been a strong and vocal opponent from the start and it is critical that we beat back any filibuster threat, defeat attempts to (remove DADT) repeal (from the National Defense Authorization Act), and defeat any crippling amendments."

If the defense budget bill does not see Senate action this month and slides into the lame-duck session, many Republicans have suggested they will agree only to a "continuing resolution" to keep the Defense Department funded. That would kill the version of the bill that contains the repeal of DADT.

"If the defense budget bill doesn't move to the Senate floor by the end of September, DADT repeal may not happen for several more years," said SLDN. "If Republicans take back the House in November, as many are beginning to predict, SLDN doesn't see (John) Boehner (who would become speaker) pushing a vote on DADT next year."

If the Senate passes DADT repeal and President Barack Obama signs it, nothing will happen right away. That's because of language in the bill that delays repeal until three things take place: the Pentagon completes a study by Dec. 1 on how to implement DADT repeal; Obama, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Michael Mullen certify that the military will not be harmed by implementing DADT repeal in accord with the Pentagon's plans; and 60 additional days pass after the certification.

The earliest that gay people in the military might be able to safely come out of the closet would be sometime in February of next year.




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Gay Saudi diplomat seeks U.S. asylum
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The former first secretary of Saudi Arabia's consulate in Los Angeles has requested asylum in the United States because he says he'll be executed for being gay if he returns home.

"If I go back to Saudi Arabia, they will kill me openly in broad daylight," Ali Ahmad Asseri e-mailed media outlets in mid-September.

Asseri said Saudi officials ordered him home after finding out he's gay and is friends with a Jew. He apparently has been in hiding since.

The U.S. does grant asylum to foreign gays if the U.S. is convinced they face genuine harm in their native lands. The laws treat gay asylum-seekers as members of "a particular social group."

Saudi Arabia's entry in the United States' 2009 State Department Human Rights Reports says: "Under Shari'a as interpreted in the country, sexual activity between two persons of the same gender is punishable by death or flogging. It is illegal for men 'to behave like women' or to wear women's clothes and vice versa. There were few reports of societal discrimination, physical violence, or harassment based on sexual orientation. There were no organizations of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender persons. There was no official discrimination based on sexual orientation in employment, housing, statelessness, or access to education or health care. Sexual orientation could constitute the basis for harassment, blackmail, or other actions. No such cases were reported."

The entry continues: "On June 13, Riyadh police arrested 67 men from the Philippines for drinking and dressing in women's clothing at a private party. According to their embassy, police released the men to their employers while charges were being processed. In 2007 the newspaper Okaz reported the public flogging of two men in the city of Al-Bahah after being found guilty of sodomy. The sentence was 7,000 lashes."

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