In the USA 30 of the states don't have laws to protect gay people from job discrimination and 39 states don't have laws to protect gay folks from housing discrimination. Half of the states don't have sexual orientation included in their hate crimes bill either. When one considers these facts, is it any surprise that our military refuses to come to terms with this issue?

I served during the Viet Nam war and what was amazing was how many gay people I served with. That is to say, I knew a LOT of gay folks in the service. Back then there was an active witch hunt (substitute gay for witch) and it was very ugly. Women and men that had served their country for years, many had done two or more tours in Nam, in a matter of a heartbeat could be court martialed and exiled from the military because of their sexual orientation. Many of these people were serious hero's. They saved lives and had medals up the ying yang but regardless, if it became known that they were gay, they were history.
It was and is ludicrous.
However, in a country that has active policies that allow these people to be discriminated against, what can we expect from our military? The military is just a mirror of our society at large.
I realize that these days, the majority of people seem to support gay rights however, there's still a very large percentage of folks spouting hatred and intolerance of gay people.
Until our society stops being invested in “hate” as a response to people who are DIFFERENT these problems with continue to haunt us.

PS The recruiting issue. Every person I knew when I was in the service would yell how IF this or that happened they wouldn't re-enlist but come time for that fat bonus to encourage their re-enlistment, they were right there to recieve it.

I also wonder who would have the nerve to bring up lack of recruitment as an issue if the question were about recruiting people of colour? Don't laugh too hard because that WAS an issue in the late 60tys and throughout the 70tys. I can't tell you how many times I heard that a given person would NEVER enlist if it meant they'd have a (fill in the blank with the racial slur of your choice) as their company commander. BUT the fact is, most of the enlisted folks we have in our services are there due to ECONOMIC reasons (i.e. no jobs for them in their area, HS diploma isn't good enough to get a decent job, they lack training and maturity, etc) so .. I really doubt that the people who are joining our services are going to STOP joining solely because of the gay rights issue. If there's no work in your area and you have no training, no experience…
Where else are you going to go?
Can we say, “Economic draft?” Because THAT is how we're getting the majority of our young recruits these days ..same as when I was in and it's the same reason *I* joined.
BTW, I was extremely anti-Viet Nam war but when looking at living on the streets and no job in sight ..
I enlisted.
I don't think it's much different today.

STOP THE HATE.
My two cents worth.

Some of the shortfall would be made up by gays willing to enlist in a military that accepts them as equals. I also think that many of those who claim they would not enlist would end up doing so anyway. But I think you're right that we would still have a shortfall, but we have a shortfall today. At any rate I'm sure that those guys who are in the military and claim they wouldn't serve if gays could openly enlist actually serve with guys who are gay. Those who are afraid of gays just don't know it. And they don't know about it because there hasn't been an issue.

Is it too much to ask those same soldiers who kill our enemies to grow up and deal with some potential personal issues they may experience? The world isn't filled with bigots.

The fact that you are probably correct that ” We don't need and don't deserve to be told “water flows downhill” too many times,” and “Don't risk a backlash by pushing this too hard…” on issues of justice and equality certainly reflects sadly on the state of our society. Don't you think?

For sure only 37% opposes homosexuals serving openly, and only 26% agreeing to it with 32% maintaining a neutral stance. Of course the Perception Managers would not dare to publish that only 26% of the military members polled favor homosexuals serving openly.

Here is another that doesn't make the PM rounds either. 77% of the males stated they still would of enlisted if homosexuals were openly serving. Sounds damn good until one takes the 23% who would not enlist & run it against a male total force recruiting mission of 270,000 & we find out that if these numbers played out, the armed forces would come up about 62,000 short on its annual recruiting mission. The Army active recruiting mission this year is 80k. Start missing annual Army recruiting by 18k+ , DADT will not even be an issue as the Draft does not descriminate.

Hmmm, that'll be one way to turn Public Perception into a reality check.

Don't risk a backlash by pushing this too hard (which already has likely become the case) rather than looking intelligently _ahead_ and showing patience until January, the earliest you can reasonably expect progress to begin on Change [tm].