Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank
is predicting that President Obama will drop his legal defense of
“Don't Ask, Don't Tell” if legislative repeal fails.
The Senate appears poised to follow in
the footsteps of the House and repeal the law that prohibits gay and
bisexual troops from serving openly. Four
Republicans are expected to side with all but one Democrat, West
Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, during Saturday's vote.
But if repeal fails, Frank predicted
the president would stop fighting the law in the courts.
“He [Obama] will drop his defense of
it because the argument has been, 'Well, you're the president and you
have this obligation,' and I think that's generally right, we don't
want the president picking and choosing what laws they defend in
court. But this one will have lost its legitimacy, its moral
legitimacy, its majoritarian claim. It won't be a case anybody could
argue with the courts, overturning the will of the voters. The
voters – majorities in the House and Senate – have said, no more
of this,” Frank told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann.
In October, a federal judge found the
policy to be unconstitutional and ordered the military to end its
enforcement. The
Obama administration convinced an appeals court to put the order on
hold.