Goodbye Don't Ask, Don't Tell

Looks like it's one for the history books:

In a landmark vote for gay rights, the Senate set the stage for passage Saturday of legislation that would overturn the military ban on openly gay troops, and President Barack Obama said it was "time to close this chapter in our history"

Repeal would mean that, for the first time in American history, gays would be openly accepted by the military 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 known as "don't ask, don't tell."

A 63-33 test vote — 60 votes were need to advance the measure — earlier Saturday paved the way for passage, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said a final vote would come at 3 p.m. The House had passed an identical version of the bill, 250-174, earlier this week, so Senate approval would send the measure to the White House.

[...]

In the end, six GOP senators broke with their party in favor of repeal. Republicans supporting the bill were Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Olympia Snowe of Maine, Scott Brown of Massachusetts, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, George Voinovich of Ohio, and Mark Kirk of Illinois.

Ron Fournier says this will "appease[]" liberals. I'm not so sure about that. But it is about time that the Senate got on board with the vast majority of Americans who have backed repeal of the policy.

[UPDATE at 12:30 PM]: Don't ask, don't tell repeal passes by an even wider 65 to 31 margin. Per Laura Rozen, two GOP Senators who had voted against cloture -- Richard Burr of North Carolina and John Ensign of Nevada -- voted in favor of repeal.