Michigan Senator Carl Levin said
Tuesday he backs a Pentagon survey on “Don't Ask, Don't Tell,”
but then added several caveats, the Christian Science Monitor
reported.
As chairman of the Senate Armed
Services Committee, Levin's support on repeal of the law that forbids
gay troops from serving openly is seen as critical. He has
personally championed repeal.
The 103-question, $4.5 million survey
has been decried by gay activists as “homophobic,” an accusation
the Department of Defense has denied.
“This expensive survey stokes the
fires of homophobia by its very design and will only make the
Pentagon responsibility to subdue homophobia as part of this
inevitable policy change even harder,” Alexander Nicholson,
executive director of Servicemembers United, said on the group's
website.
The Servicemembers Legal Defense
Network (SLDN), the nation's largest group lobbying for repeal,
warned Friday that gay and lesbian personnel could be placing
themselves at risk of violating the policy by taking the survey.
Department of Defense Spokesman Geoff
Morrell said he rejected the accusations of bias “as nonsense.”
“We think it would be irresponsible
to conduct a survey that didn't address these kinds of [social]
questions,” Morrell said, referring to questions that ask how
members would react in various social situation if gay troops were
visible.
At a breakfast sponsored by the
Monitor, Levin said the survey was a “very good idea,” but
then added, “providing it is clearly understood that it is just a
question to help guide decision makers.”
Levin also cautioned against dependence
on surveys, saying “it is surely overdone with politicians.” And
warned that the survey could give troops the impression that the
military is a democracy.
Repeal of the gay ban cleared the House
last month, but is expected to face a steep incline when senators
take up the issue later this summer. Republican lawmakers in the
chamber have threatened to filibuster the measure. While President
Obama backs repeal of the 1993 law, Defense Secretary Robert Gates
has said the president might veto the military defense bill that
envelopes the measure if it includes several expenditures opposed by
the administration.
Levin argued that the survey's results
should not be released to the public.