Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta has decided to end the ban on gays serving openly in the armed services and certify to Congress that repealing the 17-year-old law will not hurt the military’s ability to fight, officials said Thursday.
His decision, which was expected, was revealed two weeks after the chiefs of the military services told Mr. Panetta that ending the ban would not affect military readiness. Dismantling the ban fulfills a 2008 campaign promise by President Obama, who helped usher the repeal through Congress and signed it into law in late December.
But the move also drew strong opposition from some in Congress and initial reluctance from military leaders, who worried that it could cause a backlash and erode troop cohesion.
Defense officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the decision had not been made public, said the announcement will be made Friday afternoon. If Mr. Obama certifies the change, as is expected, the repeal would become effective 60 days later, which could open the military to gays by the end of September.
The “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy was adopted during the Clinton administration as part of a law banning open homosexuality in the ranks. The military had long barred gays through other legal means, though.
The “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy has come under an onslaught of legal challenges, including a federal court ruling in early July that ordered the government to immediate stop enforcing the gay ban. Days later, however, the Obama administration appealed the ruling, saying that abruptly ending the ban would complicate the orderly process for repeal that already had been set into motion.
A San Francisco appeals court agreed but added a caveat: The government cannot investigate, penalize or discharge anyone for being openly gay.
The military services have conducted extensive internal studies and about five months of training to gauge how troops would react to the change. A survey of U.S. troops last year found that some two-thirds didn’t care if the ban is lifted. Opposition to the repeal was strongest among combat troops, particularly Marines.
But as training has gone on this year, senior military leaders have said they’ve seen no real problems.
Former Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who retired at the end of June, told the Associated Press in an interview that he saw no roadblocks to the repeal and that people had been “mildly and pleasantly surprised at the lack of pushback in the training.”
The bulk of the military has been trained on the new law, including a complex swath of details about how the change will or will not affect housing, transfers or other health and social benefits.
In most cases, the guidelines demand that homosexuals not be treated differently from other service members. But differences will exist. Since federal law does not recognize same-sex marriages and thus gay partners will not get the same housing and other benefits as married couples, instead, being treated like unmarried couples.
Sen. Jack Reed, Rhode Island Democrat and a former Army Ranger, said in a statement Thursday that the ban was “an ineffective policy that prevented talented, highly skilled soldiers from honorably serving our nation.”
Aubrey Sarvis, executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a national organization representing gay troops, said Mr. Panetta’s action is welcomed by gay and lesbian troops “who have had to serve their country in silence for far too long.”
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