'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Will Get Senate Hearing

The Senate Armed Services Committee will convene a fall hearing to examine the US military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy governing gay service members, the Albany Times Union reports. Chairman Carl Levin agreed to hold the hearings at the encouragement of New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who has been pushing to tack an 18-month stay in homosexual dismissals onto an upcoming defense spending bill.

Gillibrand pushed for the hearing after failing to find adequate support for the stay. “This policy is wrong for our national security and wrong for the moral foundation upon which our country was founded,” she says. “Numerous military leaders are telling us that the times have changed. ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ is an unfair, outdated measure that violates the civil rights of some of our bravest, most heroic men and women.” (More Kirsten Gillibrand stories.)