WASHINGTON D.C. – After years of campaigning by President Barack Obama, months of testimony and public opinion by the highest ranking members in the Armed Services and thousands of pleas from service members, the road to repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the policy that allows gays and lesbians to be fired from the military for being homosexual, has hit a roadblock.

Needing 60 votes, the United States Senate fell three votes short of moving to stop debate on the Defense Authorization Bill, which includes the DADT repeal.

“Despite having the bipartisan support of a clear majority of senators, a minority of senators are standing in the way of the funding upon which our troops, veterans and military families depend,” Obama said in a statement. “This annual bill has been enacted each of the past 48 years, and our armed forces deserve nothing less this year.”

The bill is cosponsored by Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine).

Gay rights groups are livid, and some even protested in front of the Senate chambers shortly after the defeated vote.

“History will hold these senators accountable and so will many of their constituents,” said Aubrey Sarvis, executive director of Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a group pushing for repeal of the law. “There will be no place for these Senators to hide. The Senate and the president must remain in session and in Washington to find another path for repeal to get done in the lame-duck.”

Joe Manchin of West Virginia was one of the Senators who voted against cloture, which would have brought the bill to a full Senate vote. Manchin stated that he did not support cloture because he had not yet consulted constituents on the issue, but said that the policy “probably should be repealed in the near future.”

According to reports, however, Lieberman sent out a tweet saying he and Collins are immediately introducing a freestanding bill to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has agreed to bring it to the floor in the lame-duck session.

Nearly 13,400 service members have lost their job since 1994 because they were outed for being gay or lesbian.