Pentagon wants ‘don’t ask’ ban in light of troop poll

WASHINGTON – Gay troops can serve openly in the armed forces without harming the military’s ability to fight, the Pentagon’s top leaders declared Tuesday, calling for the 17-year-old “don’t ask, don’t tell” ban to be scrapped and pointing to a new survey to show most troops won’t mind.

President Barack Obama, citing the troop poll, urged the Senate to repeal the ban before adjourning in the next few weeks, but there is still no indication GOP objections can be overcome with just a few weeks left in the postelection lame-duck session. Still, the survey did put new pressure on Republican opponents, led by Sen. John McCain, who say efforts to repeal the law are politically motivated and dangerous at a time of two wars.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the ban on openly gay military service “requires people to lie,” and he called for quick Senate action.

“We spend a lot of time in the military talking about integrity and honor and values. Telling the truth is a pretty important value in that scale,” Gates said as he released the Pentagon study showing that most people currently in uniform don’t care about the ban.

Senate Democrats plan to force a vote in December. Senate Republicans were generally silent following release of the Pentagon recommendations for repealing the ban.

Although historic, Tuesday’s recommendation that the military for the first time allow openly gay people came with a caveat that also frustrates many supporters of repeal. Gates wants an indefinite grace period while the Pentagon prepares for the policy change and phases it in.

“It would be unwise to push ahead with full implementation of repeal before more can be done to prepare the force, in particular those ground combat specialties and units, for what could be a disruptive and disorienting change,” Gates said.

Critics led by McCain say the Pentagon’s report doesn’t address risks to morale and fighting mettle. Gates countered: “I obviously have a lot of admiration and respect for Sen. McCain, but in this respect I think that he’s mistaken.”

Obama has called it a top priority to repeal the 1993 law that bans openly gay people from serving. But gay rights groups have complained that he and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have done too little to see it through, focusing their postelection efforts instead on tax cuts and a nuclear arms treaty with Russia before Republicans gain congressional strength when lawmakers return in January.

In the report, the study’s co-chairs, Pentagon General Counsel Jeh Johnson and Army Gen. Carter Ham, wrote, “We are both convinced that our military can do this, even during this time of war.”

Gates said he didn’t think the Pentagon would have to rewrite its regulations on housing, benefits or fraternization to accommodate gays if they were allowed to serve openly.

A defense policy bill that would overturn the law has languished in the Senate since it passed the House this spring.

In the meantime, a federal judge ordered the Pentagon to stop enforcing the law because it was unconstitutional. The Obama administration is appealing that decision.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Tuesday he agreed with Gates that “this is a policy change that we can make and we can do it in a relatively low-risk fashion,” given time to prepare forces and leaders for new rules and expectations.

A look at the survey

The Pentagon survey found that some two-thirds of troops don’t care if the ban is lifted. Of the 30 percent who objected, most of them were in combat units.

Opposition was strongest among combat troops, with at least 40 percent saying repeal would be a bad idea. That number climbed to 58 percent among Marines serving in combat roles.

A summary of the report said 69 percent of respondents believed they had already served alongside a gay person. Of those who believed that, 8 percent said the units functioned poorly as a result.

“We have a gay guy. He’s big, he’s mean and he kills lots of bad guys. No one cared that he was gay,” the report quotes a member of the special operations force as saying.

The report says that many gay troops would be likely to keep their sexual orientation quiet even after the ban was lifted. That discretion would probably be more common in the military than in the civilian world, the report’s authors said.

Of those respondents who said they were gay, only 15 percent said they would want that known to everyone in their unit.