Officially it's to be known as "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Act of 2010" and it's a bill that puts in motion the machine that will change the policy of military service with regards to sexual orientation.
Here is the full text (it's short):
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_bills&docid=f:s4023pcs.txt.pdf
In short it requires that the secretary of defense issue a memorandum that will result in studies of how the uniform legal code should be modified, and how those modifications will affect military effectiveness and readiness. There is a list of objectives this memorandum is meant to fulfill, and until those objectives are fulfilled the current legal code remains in effect.
Notably it specifies that any changes cannot run contrary to the defense of marriage act - they cannot redefine "spouse" and "marriage" for the purposes of dependent benefits. They have to use the definitions provided by DOMA, just as every other federal agency does.
So:
- Nothing changes right now
- A bunch of work is to commence now involving figuring out what to change, how to change it, how to make sure it implemented correctly, how to measure its effects, etc
- Any proposed changes will occur 60 days after the president and secretary of defense have received the results of the above work
- If any of the objectives are not met, the current code will remain in force
- Don't expect the changes to completely erase the differences - the same rules that deny benefits to same sex spouses of federal employees will deny same sex spouse benefits from military members.
- The law is meant only to affect a small portion of the military code, and may not affect, for instance, regulations against sodomy (which can be
very broadly defined).
So while it's a step, it's not anywhere near a slam dunk for proponents of same sex equality.
