国产热热热精品,亚洲视频久久】日韩,三级婷婷在线久久,99人妻精品视频,精品九热人人肉肉在线,AV东京热一区二区,91po在线视频观看,久久激情宗合,青青草黄色手机视频

US military one step closer to allowing gays

Updated: 2011-07-22 14:06

(Agencies)

  Comments() Print Mail Large Medium  Small 分享按鈕 0

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon will announce on Friday that the US military is ready to repeal the ban on gays serving openly in the armed forces, the last major hurdle to formally ending the policy, US officials said on Thursday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

President Barack Obama last year signed a landmark law to allow for the repeal of the nearly 18-year-old "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy that forced gays to keep their sexual orientation secret in order to serve in the military.

But Pentagon leaders first needed to certify that military readiness would not suffer as a result - something that will now be done by new US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Admiral Mike Mullen, the top US military officer, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Once the Pentagon has signed off, Obama can certify the repeal - fulfilling a 2008 campaign promise to end a policy that saw more than 13,000 men and women expelled from the military because of their sexual orientation.

There is then a 60-day waiting period before the law is finally scrapped.

Ending the policy, enacted under then-President Bill Clinton in 1993, has been a top priority of gay rights activists, along with advancing same-sex marriage rights.

Critics of repeal within the Pentagon had long argued it was too risky to pursue the change at a time when the military was stretched by the wars in Iraq in Afghanistan.

But a Pentagon study unveiled last year predicted that scrapping the policy would have little impact, and repeal won support from Mullen, chairman of the US military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, and then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

US courts also intervened, with a California district court judge last year finding that the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy violated the US constitution.

The Obama administration managed to keep the policy partly in effect through court appeals in order to give the Defense Department time to prepare for repeal. Last week, a federal appeals court blocked the Pentagon from investigating or discharging anyone under the policy.

志丹县| 房产| 曲周县| 沽源县| 唐海县| 榆林市| 宾阳县| 江阴市| 莎车县| 荔浦县| 绥棱县| 通渭县| 余干县| 隆化县| 通江县| 鄂伦春自治旗| 南康市| 正定县| 临高县| 阿拉善盟| 富宁县| 开原市| 内江市| 二连浩特市| 明星| 广饶县| 扶风县| 东丰县| 佛山市| 台中县| 云和县| 荣昌县| 门源| 阜宁县| 云安县| 临泽县| 临颍县| 阿坝县| 温宿县| 河北省| 阿城市|