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David Edwards and Jeremy Gantz Although President Obama has said he wants to end the ban, he's elected to "push that one down the road a bit," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Fox Sunday morning. In January, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama would end the policy, but didn't give a time frame when he would do so. "I think the president and I feel like we've got a lot on our plates right now, and let's push that one down the road a little bit," Gates told Fox's Chris Wallace. When Wallace asked Gates why there is money in the proposed 2010 budget to enforce the "don't ask" policy, the former Bush administration official said the Pentagon will enforce whatever policy is the law. "Any change in the policy would require a change in the law," Gates said. "We will follow the law whatever it is. That dialog [to end the ban]... has really not progressed very far in this administration." The Pentagon policy was put in place after President Bill Clinton tried to lift the ban on gay service members in 1993. Under the policy, military recruits cannot be asked about their sexual orientation. In turn, service members are banned from saying they are gay or bisexual, engaging in homosexual activity or trying to marry a member of the same sex. In early March, California Representative Ellen Tauscher introduced legislation that end the "don't ask" law. "It makes no sense to discharge capable service members for something as irrelevant as their sexual orientation," Tauscher wrote in a letter urging House colleagues to sign on as co-sponsors of the bill. The law has led to a large number of dismissals of gay service members, with some 12,500 soldiers Tauscher said Washington's 25 NATO partners include 20 countries that allow open service and "none of them have experienced any detriment to troop morale or unit cohesion" -- a core argument of those who support the restrictions. "It is time to allow the military to recruit and retain all of the qualified, talented individuals who wish to serve our country, regardless of their sexual orientation," she said. With wire reports. This video is from Fox's Fox News Sunday, broadcast Mar. 29, 2009.
Sixteen years after it began under former President Bill Clinton, there's no end to the U.S. military's "don't ask, don't tell" ban on gays serving openly in sight.
sent packing for acknowledging their homosexuality or after being outed as gay.
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Originally published on Sunday March 29, 2009.