A CNN survey shows 78% of Americans favor repealing DADT.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/99689-poll-78-percent-favor-repealing-dont-ask-dont-tell?page=3Public opinion polls have been widely varied in their results. A national poll conducted in May 2005 by the Boston Globe showed 79% of participants don't oppose openly gay people from serving in the military. In a 2008 Washington Post–ABC News poll, 75% of Americans – including 80% of Democrats, 75% of independents, and 66% of conservatives – said that openly gay people should be allowed to serve in the military.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_ask,_don't_tell104 GENERALS AND ADMIRALS: GAY BAN MUST END
http://www.palmcenter.org/press/dadt/releases/104Generals%2526Admirals-GayBanMustEndBan on Gays is Senseless Attempt to Stall the Inevitable
By Barry M. Goldwater
The following is a transcript of Barry Goldwater's commentary on the military gay ban that appeared this week in the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times.
After more than 50 years in the military and politics, I am still amazed to see how upset people can get over nothing. Lifting the ban on gays in the military isn't exactly nothing, but it's pretty damned close
Everyone knows that gays have served honorably in the military since at least the time of Julius Caesar. They'll still be serving long after we're all dead and buried. That should not surprise anyone.
But most Americans should be shocked to know that while the country's economy is going down the tubes, the military has wasted half a billion dollars over the past decade chasing down gays and running them out of the armed services.
It's no great secret that military studies have proved again and again that there's no valid reason for keeping the ban on gays. Some thought gays were crasy, but then found that wasn't true. then they decided that gays were a security risk, but again the Department of Defense decided that wasn't so-in fact, one study by the Navy in 1956 that was never made public found gays to be good security risks. Even Larry Korb, President Reagan's man in charge of implementing the Pentagon ban on gays, now admits that it was a dumb idea. No wonder my friend Dick Cheney, secretary of defense under President Bush, called it "a bit of an old chestnut"
When the facts lead to one conlusion, I say it's time to act, not to hide. The country and the military know that eventually the ban will be lifted. The only remaining questions are how much muck we will all be dragged through, and how many brave Americans like Tom Paniccia and Margarethe Cammermeyer will have their lives and careers destroyed in a senseless attempt to stall the inevitable.
Some in congress think I'm wrong. They say we absolutely must continue to discriminate, or all hell will break loose. Who knows, they say, perhaps our soldiers may even take up arms against each other.
Well, that's just stupid.
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/scotts/bulgarians/barry-goldwater.html
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