New Report by Senior Military Leaders Urges End to Gay Ban
Source: The Palm Center, University of California, Santa Barbara

A new study released today by a team of retired senior flag and general officers from the U.S. military has concluded that the ban on openly gay service members is counterproductive and should end, the Associated Press is reporting today. The nonpartisan study group has a combined century and a half of military service from all four branches of the military, and it marks the first time a Marine Corps general has ever called publicly for an end to the gay ban. “I believe this should have been done much earlier,” said Brigadier General Hugh Aitken, USMC (Ret.), one of the authors of the report.

The Palm Center, a research institute at the University of California, Santa Barbara, commissioned the new report. The officers reached their findings independently and required a written pledge that the Center would publish their recommendations regardless of the political implications, and would not seek to influence conclusions. The report includes ten findings and four recommendations. Key findings are that the policy prevents some gay troops from performing their duties, that gays already serve openly, that tolerance of homosexuality in the military has grown dramatically, and that lifting the ban is “unlikely to pose any significant risk to morale, good order, discipline, or cohesion.”

General John Shalikashvili, the former Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who previously favored the gay ban but reversed course last year in an op-ed in the New York Times, endorsed the officers’ new study, calling it “one of the most comprehensive evaluations of the issue of gays in the military since the Rand study fifteen years ago” and saying it “ought to be given serious consideration by both Congress and the Joint Chiefs.”

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 9th, 2008 at 4:13 pm and is filed under Gender and sexuality, Military and defense, Social and cultural issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.