WASHINGTON (AP) - Republican efforts to delay President Barack Obama's new policy allowing gays to serve openly in the military and limit his authority to slash the nation's nuclear arsenal face formidable opposition in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
Early Thursday morning, the House Armed Services Committee approved a broad, $553 billion defense bill that would provide a 1.6 percent increase in military pay, fund an array of aircraft, ships and submarines and meet the Pentagon's request for an additional $118 billion to fight wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The vote was 60-1, with Rep. John Garamendi, D-Calif., opposing the legislation.
In a small victory for Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the bill slightly increases health care fees for working-age military retirees, costs that have remained unchanged for 11 years.
Gates called the health care fees one of the "third-rail issues" as the Pentagon tries to rein in spending in the coming years along with military pay and base closings.
"We're proposing a radical change," he said dryly in a question-and-answer session with Marines during a visit to Camp Lejeune, N.C. "Two-and-a-half bucks a month."
The bill challenged the Democratic president on scores of issues, from building an extra fighter jet engine to his decision-making on the fate of terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It struck at the heart of two of the major accomplishments of the last, Democratic-run Congress and the Obama administration - repeal of the 17-year-old ban on gays and a landmark U.S.-Russia nuclear treaty.
Democratic senators are unwilling to roll back their hard-fought efforts.
"I am fully confident that Congress will neither reverse nor delay the policy of ending discrimination in our armed forces against gay and lesbian service members and that policy will be implemented in the coming months," Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., a member of the Armed Services Committee, said Thursday.
In a series of contentious votes, the House panel added provisions that strike at repeal of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy. The votes came even as Americans increasingly support an end to the ban, with polls finding three-quarters say openly gay men and women should be allowed to serve in the military.
The committee approved a provision by Rep. Todd Akin, R-Mo., that would prohibit the use of military facilities for same-sex marriage ceremonies and bar Defense Department employees from conducting such ceremonies. The vote was 38-23.