Most Marines Say Gays Will Harm Combat Forces

Two-thirds of U.S. Marine combat forces believe that placing gays in their units would hurt their effectiveness in the field, according to a survey the Defense Department ordered.

Westat Corp., a polling firm, surveyed more than 115,000 active duty service members, including 989 men serving in Marine combat units.

The survey was conducted before Congress voted on Dec. 18 to repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law barring homosexuals from serving openly in the military, and President Barack Obama signed it into law on Dec. 22.

One question asked: “If don’t ask, don’t tell is repealed and you are working with a service member in your immediate unit who has said he or she is gay or lesbian, how, if at all, would it affect your immediate unit’s effectiveness at completing its mission?”

The results: 42.6 percent of the Marines in combat units said it would affect the unit’s effectiveness “very negatively,” and 23.9 said “negatively,” for a total of 66.5 percent negative.

Another 18.8 percent chose “equally as positively as negatively,” while just 2.9 percent chose “very positively,” 3 percent selected “positively,” and 8.7 percent said it would have no effect.

Another question asked how a gay or lesbian soldier would affect a unit’s effectiveness in completing its mission “in an intense combat situation.”

Thirty percent of respondents said “very negatively,” 17.8 said “negatively,” and 28.4 percent chose “equally as positively as negatively.”

Just 3.2 percent said “very positively.”

Retired Army Maj. Gen. John Singlaub, former commander of all U.S. forces in Korea, told Newsmax in a recent interview he is “100 percent against” the change in the don’t ask, don’t tell policy.

“In my view, and the view of every combat officer that I know,” he said, “it is a terrible mistake to change the law.”