Rick Santorum has joined former Governors Mike Huckabee of Arkansas and Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota and Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour in pledging to undo repeal of “Don't Ask, Don't Tell.”

The former Pennsylvania senator who is considering a run at the White House was asked by Think Progress' Igor Volsky during a campaign stop in New Hampshire: “Senator, on 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell,' I know you opposed [repealing] the policy. Would you bring it back if you were president? Would you reinstate it?”

“Yeah, I would,” Santorum answered. (The video is embedded in the right panel of this page.)

Santorum argued last week that his support for criminalizing gay sex isn't homophobic.

Congress approved and President Barack Obama signed into law a bill last year that ends the ban. But implementation will not begin until 60 days after the president and Pentagon leaders agree the military is ready for the change. At a House hearing this month, military leaders said they expect to implement repeal by summer's end.

In January, Pawlenty was the first socially conservative Republican to say that as president he would fight for the law's return.

On the radio program of the American Family Association's (AFA) Bryan Fischer, Pawlenty said he would sign such a bill.

“I've been a public supporter of maintaining 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' and I would support reinstating it as well,” Pawlenty said.

Huckabee backed the idea last month.

“I would – because that's really what the military wants. There's been some talk that the military is fine with having same-sex orientation people,” he told the AFA's One News Now. “But if you really surveyed the combat troops, that is not at all the case.”

The former Baptist minister added that soldiers, not politicians, should decide the issue.

“I don't think that these are decisions that politicians should make,” he said. “These are decisions that soldiers should make. And when the soldiers in the foxholes make the decisions, they choose something different – and we should listen to them.”

Days later, on Fischer's program, Haley Barbour joined the chorus, saying that an “amorous mindset” would interfere with critical decision making on the battlefield.

“When you're under fire and people are living and dying of split-second decisions you don't need any kind of amorous mindset that can affect saving people's lives and killing bad guys,” Barbour told his host. “You look at the data and it is the foot soldier that is the person who is out there, boots on the ground, who was most against this.”