One of the highlights of last night’s State of the Union speech was President Obama’s call to repeal the military policy which became law in 1993 under the Clinton administration, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, then Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, helped craft the compromise policy. He more recently called for the policy to be reviewed.
While GOP members on Capitol Hill, like Rep. Mike Pence (R - IN) and Senator Jim DeMint (R - S.C.), expectedly came out against repealing the military policy that Democrats have called to repeal for a number of years, Senator Bob Casey (D - PA) told the Washington Times his thoughts on the president’s remarks on DADT. He explained Congress was currently speaking to Military experts about it, and he was still examining the policy himself but gave no clear answer on where he personally stood on the issue.:
“I think he’s going to be, and has already, but it will continue to as well, that the Congress will consult with military experts and see. We’ll see what the proposal is and examine it as we go. I thought this year we took a giant step forward by making sure the hate crimes legislation was dealt with at long last, so that was a good advancement,” he said.
“I’m examining it myself, and I think there is an awful lot of relevant and important questions raised about it, and I think it’s worthy of Congressional debate and worthy of a debate with the American people about it.”
