Gays Should Be Allowed to Serve Openly in Military, Poll Finds
by The Harris Poll
The Wall Street Journal - February 2, 2007

A new poll from Harris Interactive found that 55% of Americans think gays and lesbians should be allowed to serve openly in the military.

By comparison, 19% of the 2,337 Americans polled said gays and lesbians should be allowed to serve "only if they keep their sexual orientation a secret," and 18% said they should "not be allowed to serve in the military at all."

The survey, conducted online between Jan. 11 and 18, also measured American attitudes toward the U.S. military's "Don't Ask, Don't tell" policy, which prohibits the military from asking personnel about their sexual orientation, but allows homosexuality to be a cause for discharge from the military.

Forty-six percent of respondents said they oppose the policy, unchanged from a Harris poll in 2000, and 36% said they favor the policy, compared with 34% in the previous poll. However, the policy is supported by far more men (43%) than women (29%). And among political parties, Republicans are more likely to support this policy (51%) than Democrats (25%) or Independents (31%), while 18% of Americans remain undecided about the policy.

The poll also asked whether Americans agree with comments by John M. Shalikashvili, the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who wrote in a recent New York Times editorial that if gays and lesbians served openly in the U.S. military, they would not undermine the efficacy of the armed forces. Fifty-seven percent of respondents said they agree with his comments, compared with 31% who disagree.

See full results of the poll:

http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB117035477766895153-tt5sKNkAY6_opz6nqIbr9rTV3Q0_20080202.html

Methodology: This Harris Poll was conducted online within the U.S. between Jan. 11 and 18, 2007, among 2,337 adults. Figures for age, sex, race, education, region and household income were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population. Propensity score weighting was also used to adjust for respondents' propensity to be online. All surveys are subject to several sources of error.