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WASHINGTON — A Defense Department study group has found that the United States could lift its ban on gays and lesbians serving openly in the military with little risk to current war efforts, The Washington Post reported Thursday.
"More than 70 percent of respondents to a survey sent to active-duty and reserve troops over the summer said the effect of repealing the 'don't ask, don't tell' policy would be positive, mixed or nonexistent," the online Post report said, citing two unnamed sources familiar with the document, due to be delivered to President Barack Obama on December 1.
"The survey results led the report's authors to conclude that objections to openly gay colleagues would drop once troops were able to live and serve alongside them," the Post reported.
AFP: Ending US military gay ban 'won't harm war effort'
As some of you may have recalled, Marine General John Amos, the new top Marine commander, argued that any changes could hurt the Marine corps’ effectiveness. He cited that 95% of Marines were worried about the repeal of the ban against openly gay soldier based on show of hands at open town hall style meetings
To recap, the DADT policy has been found...
-By a federal court to be unconstitutional in how it is enforced
-By a federal court to endanger national security as a resulting of losing vital units
-To be opposed by 70-80% of Americans
-To be irrelevant to most troops
Furthermore, the December lame duck session of Congress will likely be the last chance that the policy will be repealed despite all these overwhelming factors against it. Once Republicans take control of the House next year, it will be at least another 2 years before the policy can be repealed. Republicans have an enormous incentive to make sure this policy is not repealed because it would likely mean that Obama would lose many of his gay constituents and financial backers and would find himself considerably worse off come 2012. It also speaks of the mountain gay rights activists have to climb when they cannot get such a policy repealed despite having a Democratically controlled Presidency and Congress for 2 years.