Washington (CNN) -- A majority of U.S. service members surveyed do not care if the law banning openly gay and lesbian troops from serving is repealed, according to a source knowledgeable with the results of the Pentagon study. Members of Congress are to get an advance look at the study Tuesday.
The number opposing lifting the ban -- known as "don't ask, don't tell" -- fearing negative results "is very small when compared to those who say it will have positive or mixed results, or no effect at all," the source explained.
However, the source cautioned about taking the results as a true reflection of the entire force. The low number of respondents, just 28 percent of those who were sent the survey, means "the study only represents views, it doesn't mean everyone feels this way."
The report was ordered by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to examine the impact of a repeal of the law and what the military would need to do to implement it. The Pentagon is publishing the results Tuesday afternoon, after briefing Congress.
The report authors sent surveys to 400,000 service members, but only 115,000 responded. A separate survey went to military families. The survey is just part of the report fact finding, which also included small town halls and an anonymous online comment box for gay troop members to provide insight without revealing their identity.
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| Leslie Nielsen and Anne Francis in "Forbidden Planet", 1956 |
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| Georgie Jessup performs at Roanoke's 2nd Annual Rally For GLBT Equality. |
"We can start with that, we can also start with… really, we need a cultural reckoning around gay and lesbian issues. There was once two sides to the race debate. There was once a side, you could go on television and argue for segregation, you could argue against interracial marriage, against the Civil Rights Act, against extending voting rights to African Americans and that used to be treated as one side, you know, one legitimate side of a pressing national debate and it isn't anymore. And we really need to reach that point with gay and lesbian issues. There are no ‘two sides’ to the issues about gay and lesbian rights."
"And right now one side is really using dehumanizing rhetoric. The Southern Poverty Law Center labels these groups as hate groups and yet the leaders of these groups, people like Tony Perkins, are welcomed onto networks like CNN to espouse hate directed at gays and lesbians. And similarly hateful people who are targeting Jews or people of color or anyone else would not be welcome to spew their bile on networks like CNN and then that really -- we really have to start there. We have to start with that type of cultural reckoning."
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What can you say about rock legend David Bowie that hasn't been said before?
The National Organization for Marriage (NOM), which is dedicated to fighting same-sex marriage in state legislatures, was organized in 2007 by conservative syndicated columnist Maggie Gallagher and Princeton University politics professor Robert George. George is an influential Christian thinker who co-authored the 2009 “Manhattan Declaration,” a manifesto developed after a New York meeting of conservative church leaders that “promises resistance to the point of civil disobedience against any legislation that might implicate their churches or charities in abortion, embryo-destructive research or same sex marriage.”Other groups on the list include Abiding Truth Ministries, Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, Concerned Women for America, Coral Ridge Ministries, The Family Research Council and The Liberty Counsel (affiliated with Jerry Falwell's Liberty University in nearby Lynchburg, Va.). These hate-mongers disguise themselves as religious organizations and prey on the feeble-minded faithful by spreading lies and homophobia in order to pass anti-LGBT legislation.
NOM’s first public campaign was in 2008, supporting California’s Proposition 8, which sought to invalidate same-sex marriage in that state. It was widely mocked, including in a parody by satirist Stephen Colbert, for the “Gathering Storm” video ad it produced at the time. Set to somber music and a dark and stormy background, the ad had actors expressing fears that gay activism would “take away” their rights, change their lifestyle, and force homosexuality on their kids.
The group, whose president is now former executive director Brian Brown, has become considerably more sophisticated since then, emphasizing its respect for homosexuals. “Gays and Lesbians have a right to live as they choose,” NOM says on its website, “[but] they don’t have the right to redefine marriage for all of us.”
For a time, NOM’s name was used by a bus driver named Louis Marinelli, who drove a van for NOM’s “Summer for Marriage Tour” this year. Marinelli called himself a “NOM strategist” and sent out electronic messages under the NOM logo that repeated falsehoods about homosexuals being pedophiles and gay men having extremely short lifespans (see story, p. 32). In homemade videos posted on his own YouTube page, he said same-sex marriage would lead to “prostitution, pedophilia and polygamy.” But this July, NOM said it was not associated with Marinelli.
The Washington Post is reporting that there have been no discharges under DADT since Defense Secretary Robert Gates put new procedures in place on October 21.Under new rules adopted Oct. 21, Defense Secretary Robert Gates put authority for signing off on dismissals in the hands of the three service secretaries.There were 428 DADT discharges in 2009, despite President Obama's insistence that he wants to end the policy. Aaron Belkin, Executive Director of The Palm Center said of the news, "Statistically, it would be extremely unlikely if we had a month in which there were no gay discharges. When you require a service secretary to sign off on a discharge, you are basically saying, 'We don't want any people in this category discharged unless there is an exceptional situation.'"
Before then, any commanding officer at a rank equivalent to a one-star general could discharge gay enlisted personnel under the 1993 law that prohibits gays from serving openly in uniform.
Pentagon spokeswoman Cynthia Smith told The Associated Press that no discharges have been approved since Oct. 21.
Smith did not know if the absence of recent discharges was related to the new separation procedures. The Pentagon has not compiled monthly discharge figures for any other months this year, she said.
Signaling the growing seriousness of the Obama administration's commitment this year to ending the military's ban on gays serving openly in the armed forces, the Defense Department said Sunday that it will release a long-awaited report on the matter earlier than planned because senators are eager to vote on whether to repeal the policy.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has ordered the report to be released Nov. 30, one day earlier than planned, "to support Congress's wish to consider repeal before they adjourn," Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said Sunday.
The Senate is slated to vote again on a defense policy bill that includes language that would repeal the "don't ask, don't tell" policy after the Thanksgiving recess. The measure did not advance in September. Several senators asked Gates last week to release the report early so the Senate Armed Services Committee could hold hearings on it before the full Senate votes. Several moderate senators have said they will not decide how to vote until they read the report.
Gates "has instructed his staff, without cutting any corners, to have everything ready a day sooner because he wants to ensure members of the Armed Services Committee are able to read and consider the complex, lengthy report before holding hearings with its authors and the Joint Chiefs of Staff," Morrell said in a statement.
Gates; Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and the report's co-chairmen, Army Gen. Carter Ham and Pentagon General Counsel Jeh Johnson, could testify before the committee, aides said.
The report is expected to conclude that the military can lift the ban on gays serving openly in uniform with only minimal and isolated incidents of risk to the current war efforts, according to sources who shared details of the report with The Washington Post.
The report will cite a survey of active-duty and reserve troops that found that more than 70 percent of respondents said the effect of lifting the ban would be positive, mixed or nonexistent, sources said.
About 40 percent of the Marine Corps is concerned about lifting the ban, one of the sources said. Mullen said Sunday that he is confident that Gen. James Amos, the Marine Corps commandant, will be able to carry out orders to end the ban if Congress votes to do so, despite his public comments of concern.
David Berger, an expert on St Thomas Aquinas and former publisher of a Catholic magazine, has called for Rome to own up to the gay priests in its midst and alter its attitudes and teaching on homosexuality.For those of you born after the Great Depression, "homophile" is an old-timey word for "homosexual", which is an old-timey word for "out and proud gay or lesbian person". Berger says that as a teen he was drawn to conservative Catholic orthodoxy in an attempt to hide his own same-sex attraction. He is writing a book about his experiences as a closeted priest in hopes that the church will take a closer look at itself and change its position on the gays.
“It must be acknowledged that a large number of Catholic clerics and trainee priests in Europe and the United States are homosexually-inclined,” Mr Berger told Der Spiegel magazine.
“The worst homophobia in the Catholic Church comes from homophile priests, who are desperately fighting their own sexuality,” he said. “Obviously, those who follow their urges are repudiated more fiercely when one is so painfully repressing that disposition oneself.”
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“I am confident that we have more than 60 votes prepared to take up the defense authorization with the repeal of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ if only there will be a guarantee of a fair and open amendment process, in other words, whether we’ll take enough time to do it,” Lieberman told reporters at a press conference, naming GOP senators Susan Collins and Richard Lugar as yes votes. “Time is an inexcusable reason not to get this done.”
Lieberman, an independent, was flanked by 12 of his Democratic colleagues — a core group that seemed intent on urging the Democratic leadership to allow enough room in the Senate schedule for a debate that would be acceptable to Republicans. The senators talked about working over the weekends, and Sen. Mark Udall offered to go straight through until Christmas Eve.
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