Led by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., Congressional Republicans are engaged in an all-out assault on legislation that would end the legal mandate for the military’s ban on openly gay troops.  Still, repeal advocates say they expect to prevail, citing support from majorities in the House and Senate, and the overwhelming support of the American public.

McCain yesterday circulated letters he requested from top officers of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines urging Congress not to act until the Pentagon completes a study on implementing a change in policy.  But hours later, repeal opponents countered with a letter from retired Army Gen. John Shalikashvili, the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, dismissing the service chiefs’ arguments.  ”It is not only preferable, but essential that [the law] be repealed in order for the Service Chiefs to retain the very authority they require to do their jobs effectively,” Shalikashvili wrote.

The current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Navy Admiral Michael Mullen, echoed Shalikashvili yesterday, saying he’s comfortable with the repeal effort underway in Congress because of “very clear language” that gives him, the secretary of defense and the president the authority to lift the ban only when they determine the military is ready for the change.

Roll Call reported GOP senators are even willing to mount a filibuster against the defense authorization bill, the legislative vehicle to which the repeal language would be attached.  Asked whether he would actually block a bill that authorizes money to support military operations, McCain responded “without a doubt,” adding, “I’ll do everything in my power.”  But Aubrey Sarvis, executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network has his doubts about the threat.  ”It’s rather extraordinary to filibuster the defense authorization bill. … Even if they make the threat, I would assert that they could not sustain a filibuster,” Sarvis told Roll Call.

R. Clarke Cooper, the new executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans, said McCain is wrong to oppose the repeal compromise.  ”It is unfortunate that Senator McCain has reversed his historic position on ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’ Joint Chiefs Chairman, Admiral Mullen, public opinion polls, and service members themselves all agree it is time to repeal this arcane personnel policy. As a fellow combat veteran, I implore Senator McCain to be on the right side of history and vote to repeal DADT,” Cooper told GayPolitics.

In the House, repeal opponents led by military veteran Pennsylvania Democrat Patrick Murphy, D-Pa., expect solid support will make it easier to attach a repeal amendment.

Former First Lady Laura Bush told CNN’s Larry King last night she disagrees with her husband, President George W. Bush, on the issue of marriage rights for same-sex couples.  Bush said she understood why it was hard for some to come to embrace marriage equality, but added that she thought the country was headed in that direction.

“Well, I think that we ought to definitely look at it and debate it.  I think there are a lot of people who have trouble coming to terms with that because they see marriage as traditionally between a man and a woman.  But I also know that when couples are committed to each other and love each other that they ought to have the same sort of rights that everyone have,” Bush said on Larry King Live, where she appeared to promote her memoirs.

Asked how she handled the obvious policy disagreement with her husband, Bush responded, “I guess that would be an area where we disagree.  I understand totally what George thinks and what other people think about marriage being between a man and a woman, and its a real reversal of that to accept gay marriage.  But I think we could.  I think it’s also a generational thing.  It will come, I think.”

Bush is the latest in a string of well-known Republicans to embrace full marriage equality for gay couples.

California State Sen. Roy Ashburn, a conservative Republican with a solidly anti-gay voting record, came out as gay today on a Bakersfield radio station talk show.  Ashburn’s sexual orientation had been the talk of Sacramento since the legislator was arrested for drunk driving after leaving a gay bar in the state capital last week.

“I am gay.  Those are the words that have been so difficult for me for so long.  It is something that is personal, and I don’t believe I felt with my heart that being gay would affect how I do my job,” Ashburn said.

Asked about his anti-gay voting record, Ashburn said, “I felt my duty, and I still feel this way, is to represent my constituents.”

Radio talk show host Inga Barks wanted assurances that Ashburn would continue to vote in a conservative manner on LGBT rights issues.  Ashburn responded, “I believe firmly that my responsibility is to my constituents.  I will take a careful look at each measure and apply that standard.  How would they vote on this?  How would they want me to vote on this,” adding that most people understood what that means.

“I don’t know how else to ask this, but are you going to live this lifestyle now in the district?” Barks asked.  Ashburn, who announced he is not running for public office again, said, “I pray to God I can find peace.  I want to go back to the senate and work hard for the people of my district…Now you know everything about me.”

Ashburn is in his second and final four-year term in the senate, having first been elected in 2002.  He is divorced and the father of four daughters.

Socially conservative Republicans will be more successful this fall if they downplay their views on “abortion, gay marriage and other hot button social issues,” says Cameron Lynch, a GOP strategist writing in Politico yesterday.

Lynch urges candidates to follow the lead of Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, whose strategy of “biting his tongue…netted him the support of independents and moderate conservatives who either stayed home or voted for Obama in 2008,” he wrote.  ”Social and ‘movement’ conservatives, apparently adequately convinced that McDonnell was ‘one of them’, overlooked his unwillingness to preach their gospel on the campaign trail,” Lynch added.

Lynch’s advice is hard to argue with.  McDonnell breezed into office, and almost immediately began to implement a conservative social agenda that set back LGBT rights in the state.  The question now is this:  Will LGBT Americans and their allies allow this to happen in races across the country this year?

Gay people are not the property of any political party, and they are not “vessels for votes,” Nick Herbert, a conservative Member of the British Parliament, told a packed panel at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C., today. (His comments were previewed in a story in today’s Guardian.)  Herbert was joined by longtime political blogger Andrew Sullivan and anti-gay marriage campaigner Maggie Gallagher.  The trio discussed whether or not LGBT people have a place in the “conservative movement,” an entity whose definition was clearly not agreed upon by the panelists.

Herbert, who is openly gay, is a shadow secretary in the opposition party lead by David Cameron, who is very likely to become the next British Prime Minister.  Cameron has engaged in a high-profile effort to attract LGBT voters to the Tories, going so far as to apologize publicly for his party’s anti-gay past.  Herbert’s argument could be boiled down to one of his sound bites:  ”We have changed.”  In fact, Herbert said, after national elections are completed in the next 100 days the Conservatives could have more openly LGBT members of parliament than the Labor Party.

Sullivan gave an emotional and personal accounting of his experience as an openly gay conservative, lavishly praising Herbert and Cameron for coming around to full inclusion of LGBT people and issues in their party’s platform.  He also condemned strongly the current iteration of the Republican party in the U.S., calling it, “a religious organization, not a political party.”

Gallagher, who may have felt like a duck out of water at the gathering, said LGBT people are and always have been a part of the conservative movement, adding that several “openly gay” people worked for her organization, the National Organization for Marriage, which works to ban same-sex marriage everywhere.  Asked by Sullivan to name them, Gallagher said she didn’t want to “out” them in that setting.  ”How do you out openly gay people?” Sullivan responded.

A video of the full event is available at the Cato Institute’s web site here.

Photo:  James C. Dozier