Rep. Cao (R-LA) to Cosponsor the Military Readiness Enhancement Act

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Today, Louisiana Republican Rep. Anh "Joseph" Cao joined as a cosponsor to the Military Readiness Enhancement Act (MREA, H.R. 1283), a bill that would repeal the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law. Several HRC volunteers who are his constituents met with Rep. Cao's staff on several LGBT issues and also asked him to cosponsor the MREA during the HRC's recent lobby day. HRC has worked with a coalition of groups to win Rep. Cao's support for MREA including Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, Log Cabin Republicans and Servicemembers United.

To see how you can join in the fight to repeal DADT, visit www.hrc.org/RepealDADT.

Since President Obama delivered his State of the Union address in January where he called for ending the ban on openly gay and lesbian Americans from serving in the military, there has been a nearly unanimous and diverse group who have spoke out in support of doing away with the law. Some of those include:

• Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen and Defense Secretary Robert Gates during their congressional testimony before a Senate Armed Services Committee.
• General Colin Powell, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, states, "I fully support the new approach presented to the Senate Armed Services Committee this week by Secretary of Defense Gates and Admiral Mullen."
• A New York Times/CBS News national poll conducted on February 5th – 10th, 2010, shows yet again that a majority of Americans support repeal.
• The largest organization of retired U.S. military reserve officers in the nation voted to end its decades-long position in support of excluding gays and lesbians from the U.S. military. The association, founded in 1922 and chartered by Congress in 1950, also rejected the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law.
• Former Vice President and Defense Secretary ####### Cheney threw his support behind the effort to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" by stating, "When the chiefs come forward and say, 'We think we can do it,' then it strikes me as it's time to reconsider the policy, and I think Adm. Mullen said that."

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Military Readiness Enhancement Act

It has little to do with enhancing military readiness and if the proponents were honest they'd call it the Payback to the Gay Lobby Act or the Brokeback Battle Buddy Act.