One amendment, offered by Mississippi Republican Steven Palazzo, would prohibit the use of military property to “officiate, solemnize, or perform a marriage or marriage-like ceremony, involving anything other than the union of one man with one woman,” even on bases in states in which same-sex marriage is legal. Rep. Todd Akin’s, R-Mo., amendment would require the military to “accommodate the conscience and sincerely held moral principles and religious beliefs of the members of the Armed Forces concerning the appropriate and inappropriate expression of human sexuality” and would prohibit “adverse personnel actions” against them.

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Former Army Lt. Dan Choi, who was discharged because he is gay and became a leading opponent of "don't ask, don't tell," tells Salon he was appalled by the response of both the audience and the candidates to Hill's question about whether they would try to reverse the repeal of DADT.

"Any soldier who courageously stands for truth and not comfort should be applauded, supported and respected. Stephen Hill serves our country," Choi said in an email. "Those who boo our honorable soldiers do not support our troops."

None of the GOP candidates, of course, thanked Hill for his service.

Here's another reaction to the debate from Michael Cole-Schwartz, director of communications at the Human Rights Campaign. He told Salon in an email:

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On MSNBC's Maddow Show, the fresh-faced Choi made his debut on national television with three powerful words which he spoke while staring directly into the camera: "I am gay."

That sentence, stated publicly, broke Army regulations and immediately put the decorated Iraq war veteran's job on the line. They were just three words, but they sparked an international media firestorm, leading Choi -- living with his parents at the time -- to perform 18-hour days filled with interviews, appearances and lobbying. They also galvanized a movement that Tuesday ended with the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," which like so many army regulations has its own acronym, DADT.

"I didn't know if I could say no to anybody so I just did every interview," Choi said of his first months as an activist.

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The president joined Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Adm. Mike Mullen, the joint chiefs of staff chairman, in signing a notice and sending it to Congress certifying that military readiness would not be hurt by repealing the 17-year-old "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

That means that 60 days from now the ban will be lifted.

"As commander in chief, I have always been confident that our dedicated men and women in uniform would transition to a new policy in an orderly manner that preserves unit cohesion, recruitment, retention and military effectiveness," Obama said in a statement.

"Today's action follows extensive training of our military personnel and certification by Secretary Panetta and Admiral Mullen that our military is ready for repeal. As of September 20th, service members will no longer be forced to hide who they are in order to serve our country."

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Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust and Navy Secretary Ray Mabus are scheduled to sign an agreement Friday that will establish the Naval ROTC's formal presence on campus for the first time since the Vietnam War era, the university announced Thursday.

ROTC first exited amid anti-war sentiment, and the school lately kept it off campus and stopped funding the program because of the policy that prevented gays from serving openly. But Faust said she had worked toward ROTC's return after Congress repealed the so-called "don't ask, don't tell" policy in December.

Under the agreement with the Navy, a director of Naval ROTC at Harvard will be appointed, and the university will resume funding the program. The program also will be given office space and access to athletic fields and classrooms.

Harvard cadets will still train, as they have for years, as part of a consortium based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, also located in Cambridge, next to Boston. Currently, 20 Harvard students participate in ROTC, including 10 involved in Naval ROTC.

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The court voted 8-1 in favor of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan. The decision upheld an appeals court ruling that threw out a $5 million judgment to the father of a dead Marine who sued church members after they picketed his son's funeral.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion for the court. Justice Samuel Alito dissented.

"What Westboro said, in the whole context of how and where it chose to say it, is entitled to 'special protection' under the First Amendment," Roberts wrote, "and that protection cannot be overcome by a jury finding that the picketing was outrageous."

Matthew Snyder died in Iraq in 2006 and his body was returned to the United States for burial. Members of the Westboro Baptist Church, who have picketed military funerals for several years, decided to protest outside the Westminster, Md., church where Snyder's funeral was to be held.

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We spoke with Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor and noted scholar of constitutional law, to find out what this says about Obama and what this means for the future of gay marriage.

What should we make of this decision -- and the timing of it?

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The Government Accountability Office report says it cost an average of $52,800 per discharge. The totals are estimates because of differences in how the military services compile and report budget data.

Congressional investigators say that of the 3,664 service members dismissed for being gay, more than 1,400 held critical jobs or spoke an important foreign language.

President Barack Obama signed a new law in December ending the Pentagon's 17-year-old "don't ask, don't tell" policy and allowing gays to serve openly for the first time in history. That change is not expected to take effect for several months.

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A smart person could write a good column about the trajectory of the gay rights movement, the long journey from Gay Liberation to NOH8, the story of how America deals with radical movements by eventually allowing formerly marginal minorities to join mainstream society. But Jonah Goldberg is not a smart person and this is not a good column.

The column encapsulates Goldberg's pathetic conservatism: It's a philosophy defined entirely by opposition to whatever those stupid liberals want. There's no principle beyond the adolescent desire to be contrary.

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No one quite knows what to make of it. "What broken system?" HuffPost Hill semi-sarcastically asked. (Those who are predisposed to particularly dumb narratives decided that this sudden Senate action means that President Obama's having a "comeback.")

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"This is a good day," a beaming Obama said. "This is a very good day."

The service chiefs must complete implementation plans before lifting the old policy -- and they must certify to lawmakers that it won't damage combat readiness, as critics charge.

But the signing ceremony was a breakthrough moment for the nation's gay community, the military and for Obama himself. The president vowed during his 2008 campaign to repeal the law and faced pressure from liberals who complained he was not acting swiftly enough.

For Obama, it was the second high-profile bill signing ceremony within a week. On Friday, he signed into a law a tax package he negotiated with Republicans that extended Bush-era tax rates for two more years, cut payroll taxes and ensured jobless benefits to the unemployed for another year.

The two events, however, could not have been more different in tone.

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That's right: Repealing "don't ask, don't tell" could kill soldiers.

Considering that this may very well kill people, the next Congress should probably repeal the repeal, right? I mean, it's literally a matter of life and death. We need to re-ban gay people ASAP, right, Senator Kyl?

"I don't have any plan in place" to repeal the repeal in the next Congress, Kyl said on Fox today. He went on to explain that it's really not such a big deal:

"I'm not sure, by the way, it's going to be implemented all that quickly," Kyl said. "Even those who favored it said this would take a long time to implement, because you're dealing with a culture of the military that has not allowed this in the past. And especially for those combat units, for whom this has been particularly cumbersome, I think they're going to take quite some time to implement it."

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He's been forced to ignore START -- a treaty that was negotiated like, eight months ago? -- because of this voting, this week, on other things: "And I’ve had some time to think about START but not a lot and it's really wearing on the body." Poor Lindsey Graham!

He was so tired that he could barely make it to a television studio the following Sunday to complain, some more, about how much voting he's had to do lately.

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The Senate voted Saturday to end the 17-year ban on openly gay troops, overturning the Clinton-era policy known as "don't ask, don't tell."

"It's one step in a very long process of becoming an equal rights citizen," said Warren Arbury of Savannah, Ga., who served in the Army for seven years, including three combat tours, before being kicked out two years ago under the policy. He said he planned to re-enlist once the policy is abolished.

"Even though this is really huge, I look at it as a chink in a very, very long chain," he added.

The ruling drew quick rebuke from foes of lifting the ban who argued that the military shouldn't be used to expand the rights of gays and that allowing them to serve openly would hurt troop morale and a unit's ability fight.

Supporters declared the vote a civil rights milestone.

Aaron Belkin, director of the California-based Palm Center -- a think tank on the issue -- said the vote "ushers in a new era in which the largest employer in the United States treats gays and lesbians like human beings."

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Supporters say the Senate vote repealing the 17-year-old policy known as "don't ask, don't tell" signals a historic civil rights milestone.

Detractors insist it could weaken the armed forces.

In New York City's Times Square, 28-year-old public health researcher Cassandra Melnikow (MEHL'-nih-koh) is praising the repeal and says, "It's about time."

But Kris Mineau (MEE'-noh) of the conservative Massachusetts Family Institute says Congress is "gambling with our national security over political correctness."

The measure now goes to President Barack Obama for his signature.

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Obama was expected to sign the bill into law next week, although changes to military policy probably wouldn't take effect for at least several months. Under the bill, the president and his top military advisers must first certify that lifting the ban won't hurt troops' ability to fight. After that, the military would undergo a 60-day wait period.

Repeal would mean that, for the first time in American history, gays would be openly accepted by the armed forces and could acknowledge their sexual orientation without fear of being kicked out.

More than 13,500 service members have been dismissed under the 1993 law.

"It is time to close this chapter in our history," Obama said in a statement. "It is time to recognize that sacrifice, valor and integrity are no more defined by sexual orientation than they are by race or gender, religion or creed."

The Senate voted 65-31 to pass the bill, with eight Republicans siding with 55 Democrats and two independents in favor of repeal. The House had passed an identical version of the bill, 250-175, earlier this week.

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It's true, but this is how it always goes with social progress, at least when it's left to the legislative branch. It wasn't until more than 90 years after the end of slavery that an actual civil rights bill made it through Congress and into law. And even though polls have shown Americans increasingly and overwhelmingly comfortable with allowing gays to serve freely in the military, it wasn't until Saturday that Congress finally got around to doing anything about it.

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Obama says that policy undermines U.S. national security and violates "the very ideals" that members of the armed services risk their lives to defend.

A final Senate vote is set for 3 p.m. Saturday after a test vote in the morning set the stage to send the measure to Obama to sign.

The president says ending the ban will mean that "thousands of patriotic Americans" won't be forced to leave the military "despite years of exemplary performance, because they happen to be gay."

He also says many thousands more won't be "asked to live a lie in order to serve the country they love."

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