I'm Going to Rain on the Parade

OK -- the President, the Secretary of Defense, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have all signed off on DADT repeal. However:

Pentagon officials said they would be looking in the next two months at “gray areas” that might allow them to extend some benefits to same-sex married couples in the military. But under current law, particularly the Defense of Marriage Act, the Pentagon is prohibited from giving federally financed benefits to those couples.

Those benefits include base housing, health insurance, certain death benefits, legal counseling and access to base commissaries and other stores.

That's just the tip of the iceberg: there is no non-discrimination language included in the repeal bill, and there seems to have been little to no effort to rectify the situation.

This post by Joe Sudbay has a quote from Aubrey Sarvis of SLDN that points this out:

Sarvis warned that the repeal of DADT is just one important milestone along the journey to achieving LGB equality in America’s military, and he renewed the organization’s call for the President to issue an executive order prohibiting discrimination and harassment on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Such an order would give LGBT service members recourse outside their chain of command if they are experiencing discrimination or harassment.

Here's the full statement from SLDN.

There are enough anti-gay commanders in the military that this is a real issue, and, as much as I hate to say it, I honestly don't believe Obama will make any real effort to rectify it. I just have no confidence that the man is going to finish the job -- it's another half-done deal, and he seems to be perfectly happy with those.

Lots of people are handing out laurels for this, but it's interesting that none of the gay commentators I've read have mentioned Obama. The credit is going instead to SLDN, Servicemembers United, and Log Cabin Republicans, who have been fighting a successful lawsuit against the law. Oh, and Jim Burroway gives due credit to Elaine Donnelley, who has done as much for DADT repeal as Maggie Gallagher has done for marriage equality.