Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010

Floor Speech

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Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you for yielding.

You know, one might wonder at our priorities. For the first time in many, many years we don't have time to pass the defense authorization bill, but we do have time to pull out a very controversial part of that, whose passage no one will argue will be particularly helpful; it just not might be too hurtful. Maybe that's just one more reason that our favorable ratings are somewhere between used car salesmen and embezzlers.

There's an old adage that says he who frames the question determines the answer. I've had a graduate course in statistics, and I would certainly not have reached the conclusion that was reached from these studies. Thirty percent, almost twice that in the marines, said this would be a bad idea. Fifteen to 20 percent said it would be a good idea. You can't take that 50, 55 percent that didn't have an opinion and say that it is a good idea. If I was a statistician, I would have reached exactly the opposite conclusion. Thirty percent is a huge number.

You know, no matter what my sexual orientation was, I couldn't be supportive of this. We are now fighting two wars. Three of the Joint Chiefs have said this would be very disruptive. There are a lot of prejudices out there. I might regret those prejudices, but I can't change the fact that they are out there. This will not be conducive to good order and discipline. This is not the time to do it. There may come a time when we can do this in the military. This is not that time.

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