My biggest concern with repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is the unintended consequences that inevitably follow. Whether that means lower enlistment rates, I don’t know. Some recent polls show a majority of the military opposing the repeal and large percentages saying they won’t re-enlist if gays are permitted to openly serve. Not good in the middle of two wars.

(Another concern: Activist groups will sue to force the military to conduct and recognize gay marriages, leading to a push for the federal government to do the same because, hey, the military already does. In short, a round-about way to force the nation as a whole to recognize a redefinition of marriage.)

But those concerns aside, this paragraph from AOL News sums up perfectly one of the biggest issues in Washington:

Under the brokered agreement, an amendment to repeal the law this year would be added to the annual must-pass defense spending bill. Last year’s defense authorization act was used as a vehicle to pass the nation’s first federal civil rights law protecting gays and lesbians against hate crimes.

Heaven forbid a defense appropriations bill actually deal strictly with defense appropriations. Don’t bring up separate legislation later or even first for your social activist agenda, just shove it in a spending bill and hope most people outside of the gay rights community won’t notice it.

Of course, the problem extends outside of social activism. Amendments having nothing to do with the legislation they’re amending are common place. They’re called riders.

In legislative practice, a rider is an additional provision annexed to a bill under the consideration of a legislature, having little connection with the subject matter of the bill.[1] Riders are usually created as a tactic to pass a controversial provision which would not pass as its own bill. Occasionally, a controversial provision is attached to a bill not to be passed itself but to prevent the bill from being passed (in which case it is called a wrecking amendment or poison pill).

Postponing the legislation over Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell means postponing defense funding. Which is politically disastrous, and precisely why the repeal will be an amendment rather than separate legislation.