Military accepting openly gay recruits

WASHINGTON - Military officials said Tuesday they had begun accepting applications from openly gay and lesbian recruits, creating a dilemma for many homosexuals who long have wanted to join the armed forces but worry their status will be jeopardized if the controversial "don't ask, don't tell" policy is reimposed.

Later in the day, a federal judge in California refused to set aside enforcement of her ruling overturning the "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips issued her ruling after saying the government had not proved that her order would harm troops or impede efforts to implement new military regulations to deal with openly gay troops.

Justice Department officials said the Obama administration would appeal to the appellate court in San Francisco.

The Pentagon has announced that recruiters have begun taking applications from men and women who acknowledge they are gay or lesbian. "Recruiters have been given guidance, and they will process applications for applicants who admit they are openly gay or lesbian," said Cynthia O. Smith, a Pentagon spokeswoman.

Yet Smith noted that recruiters have been told to remind applicants that the court injunction could quickly be reversed. If that occurred, she said, statements by a recruit that he or she is homosexual could be used to reject them immediately, or discharge them if they had been accepted into the service.

Under the so-called don't ask, don't tell law, enacted in 1993, recruits have not been asked about their sexual orientation when they seek to enlist.

The Defense Department has said it would comply with Phillips' order and had frozen any discharge cases.

Last week, Undersecretary for Personnel and Readiness Clifford L. Stanley reminded recruiters in a memo not to ask service members or applicants about their sexual orientation.

Many advocates, including Aubrey Sarvis, executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, urged would-be recruits to proceed carefully.

"During this interim period of uncertainty," Sarvis said, "service members must not come out and recruits should use caution if choosing to sign up. The bottom line: If you come out now, it can be used against you in the future by the Pentagon."

One of the first to take the opportunity to enlist was former Army Lt. Dan Choi, a Tustin, Calif., native and Iraq war veteran who came out on the Rachel Maddow Show on cable TV in March 2009. The West Point graduate was discharged earlier this year for being gay.

Choi, 29, made an event of his reenlistment, tweeting his movements as he strolled through Manhattan to the Times Square recruiting station. There, he rapped on the glass door, entered, and asked to enlist in the Marines.

They said he was too old, so Choi filled out papers to reenlist in the Army. "We're still in a war, and soldiers are needed," said Choi, adding: "I have a newfound faith in our government that at least one branch is on the side of the Constitution, is on the side of the people."

In Los Angeles, Army recruiters were abiding by the Pentagon's new directive but they did not report a groundswell of new recruits. "Right now we can't ask but they can tell," said Fernando Sanjurjo, spokesman for the army's Los Angeles Recruiting Battalion. "We're going to do whatever we're told to do and drive on. But no influx yet."

In San Diego, Will Rodriguez, a Marine who was discharged under the policy in 2008, gave his contact information to recruiters. He said they told him there were no slots for personnel of his category but they promised to call him in January.

Aaron Belkin, director of Palm Center, a think tank on gays and the military at the University of California, Santa Barbara, called the military's announcement on accepting gay recruits a "stunt," since many legal experts expect the appellate court to reinstate the ban while they review the case.

Meanwhile, supporters of the don't ask, don't tell policy, such as the conservative Family Research Council, said "homosexuals are desperate" to get into the military, but the government should continue to fight in the courts and on Capitol Hill to keep the ban.

"With Democrats likely to lose control of Congress in the upcoming election," the council said, "they see the window for imposing their radical social agenda on the armed forces closing fast. But that is no reason for tossing out legislative debate, administrative review, and judicial restraint."