The administration of US President Barack Obama is holding “preliminary discussions” about changing the military’s prohibition against openly gay service members, White House National Security Advisor James Jones said on Sunday.
Obama pledged during the presidential campaign to change the policy.
But the issue has been on the back-burner as the White House tackles other issues such as the economy and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Jones said he does not know if the policy, known as “don’t ask, don’t tell,” would be overturned and indicated a cautious approach.
“We have a lot on our plate right now. It has to be teed up at the right time ... to do this the right way,” Jones said on the ABC program This Week.
Asked if the policy would be overturned, Jones said: “I don’t know. ... The president has said that he is in favor of that. We’ll just wait. We’ll have to wait and see.”
The current policy does not allow the military to ask service members about their sexual orientation, but allows the military to expel people who make it known that they are gay.
The policy was passed by US Congress in 1993. It was fashioned as a compromise between those who wanted to preserve the previous outright prohibition on gays in the military and those who wanted to allow gays to serve.
“We have had preliminary discussions with the leadership of the Pentagon, [US Defense] Secretary [Robert] Gates, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs [Admiral Mike Mullen],” Jones said.
“It will be discussed in the way the president does things, which is: Be very deliberative, very thoughtful, seeking out all sides on the issue,” said Jones, a retired general who previously served as commandant of the US Marine Corps.
Proponents of the prohibition on openly gay people serving in the military argue that allowing them in would harm the morale and “good order and discipline” in the armed forces.
An openly gay Army officer this month released a hand-written letter she received from Obama in response to a letter she had written to him condemning the policy.
Obama wrote: “It is because of outstanding Americans like you that I committed to changing our current policy. Although it will take some time to complete [partly because it needs congressional action] I intend to fulfill my commitment!”
Jones did not indicate a time table for the administration’s discussions on how to approach the issue.
Senator John McCain, the 2008 presidential nominee who served in the Navy during the Vietnam War, said on the same program: “In my view — and I know that a lot of people don’t agree with that — the policy has been working and I think it’s been working well.”
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