Asked about the prospects for repeal during the so-called lame duck session, Gates said: "I would like to see the repeal of 'don't ask, don't tell' but I'm not sure what the prospects for that are. And we'll just have to see."
Gates made the comments to reporters aboard a U.S. military aircraft shortly before landing in Australia for annual bilateral talks.
For the past 17 years, homosexuals have been allowed to serve in the U.S. military as long as they hide their sexual orientation. They are expelled if it becomes known.
Polls have said most Americans support lifting the ban. The House has voted to change the law but unless the Senate takes it up in the final weeks of the "lame-duck" legislative session, it will effectively die.
Obama is under pressure to act after a series of court decisions created confusion for the Pentagon.
The Marines are opposed to ending it.
The new commandant of the U.S. Marines Corps said Saturday that now is the wrong time to overturn the "don't ask, don't tell" policy prohibiting gays from openly serving in the military, as U.S. troops remain in the thick of war in Afghanistan.
"There's risk involved; I'm trying to determine how to measure that risk," Gen. James Amos said. "This is not a social thing. This is combat effectiveness. That's what the country pays its Marines to do."
Last month, the Pentagon was forced to lift its ban on openly serving gays for eight days after a federal judge in California ordered the military to do so. The Justice Department has appealed, and a federal appeals court granted a temporary stay of the injunction.
Amos said the policy's repeal may have unique consequences for the Marines, which is exempt from a Defense Department rule for troops to have private living quarters except at basic training or officer candidate schools. The Marines puts two people in each room to promote a sense of unity.
It's remarkable that the Commandant is so openly contradicting the Secretary's view on this.
By: Brant
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While I admire the Commandant's willingness to speak his mind, in direct contradiction to the often expressed views of both the SecDef and the president, I don't believe anybody is still listening. The die is cast on DADT repeal: it's now a question of when, not whether, and I don't think anyone else's definition of "when" includes finishing the Afghanistan war.
The only interesting questions that remain are in the realm of consequences, which all actions initiate. We have 17 years of data regarding the consequences of DADT, which people can evaluate and approve/disapprove of as fits their prejudices, and exactly no data on the consequences of repeal. The DoD troop survey is a manifestly inadequate effort to generate that data; it will tell us nothing we don't already believe, pro or con. We're about to dive blindfolded off the high board; it will be "interesting" to see what transpires.
I wish someone would have told the Army about the DOD rule for troops to have a private room.
Homosexuals already serve in the Corps and they don't seem to have a problem slinging lead because of it.
Just my two cents.
it's interesting that people somehow assume that DADT prevents homosexuals from serving. DADT just means you can't serve openly.
There's nothing saying they can't serve. There's a law against disclosing the fact that you're gay, not against being gay.
The law is still used to discharge service members despite their discretion. In one instance I have personal knowledge of, the soldier was extremely discrete about his sexuality, yet another soldier with a grudge "outed" him to the command. The soldier was a civilian in less than 72 hrs. He was following the rules, yet still prohibited from service.
I would question whether or not the policy was followed correctly in that case. Without knowing the details of it, I didn't think that you could boot someone without their own disclosure or an overwhelming level of proof. I'm trying to think back to the policy training we had years ago when this was first an issue...
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