WASHINGTON — Gay men and women should be allowed to serve openly in the military, the nation’s top military officer told Congress on Tuesday, the strongest endorsement ever by the nation’s military leadership for overturning the law that excludes them from the U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen called repeal of the ban “the right thing to do.”
“No matter how I look at the issue, I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens,” Mullen told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Mullen’s testimony drew objections from most of the committee’s Republicans.
Sen. John McCain of Arizona spelled out his misgivings to repealing the law, calling the current policy imperfect but effective, despite having said four years ago that he’d defer to the wishes of military leaders on the matter.
Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama pointedly reminded Mullen that Congress, not the chairman, will decide if the law should be changed.
“I don’t think they are required to lie about who they are. I think that is an overstatement,” Sessions told Mullen. “You shouldn’t use your power to influence a discussion.”
Defense Secretary Robert Gates told the hearing that he thinks it’s a matter of when, not if, the law will be repealed. Gates said he’d ordered a 45-day review of the regulations used to implement the current law in an effort to find a “fairer way to enforce it.”
He also said he had asked the Pentagon’s chief legal adviser, Jeh Johnson, and the head of the U.S. Army in Europe, Gen. Carter Ham, to head a panel to study what steps would be necessary were the ban to be lifted.
The study will take at least a year to complete.
Former President Bill Clinton sought to eliminate the ban in 1993, but faced with opposition from both top military officers and Congress, instead issued the so-called “don’t ask, don’t tell” executive order that guides current enforcement.
Under that order, military officers aren’t supposed to inquire about service members’ sexual orientation or seek to know it, while service members themselves are to keep quiet about it. The rule also requires officers to act if they learn that a subordinate is gay.
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