The youngest generation of America’s warriors leaving the fields of battle in Iraq and Afghanistan say it’s time to repeal the military’s ban on homosexuals serving openly, according to a new poll conducted for a veterans group out this week.
The Vet Voice Foundation commissioned the poll of 510 veterans of America’s most recent wars, and found that while the vets were divided on repealing the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, vast majorities said that they would accept serving along side gay and lesbian soldiers, sailors and Marines.
As for the policy itself, the veterans seemed to reflect the conventional wisdom about Americans as a whole — the younger generation is ready to extend rights to homosexuals while older people are resistant.
The poll was conducted by the firm of veteran Democratic pollster Celinda Lake and Republican polling firm American Viewpoint. It was conducted during the month of February.
In total, the poll finds that Iraq and Afghanistan veterans oppose allowing homosexuals to serve openly by a margin of 36%-34%. Twenty-eight percent say they’re not sure. Broken down by age, however, the poll shows the split is really between veterans under 35 and those older.
Forty-one percent of younger veterans said they favored allowing homosexuals to serve openly, and 35% said they were opposed. Twenty-three percent are undecided. Among veterans over 35, 36% are opposed to ending DADT while only 31% favor it (31% are undecided).
But when it comes to specific questions about gay and lesbian service members, the veterans are united: being gay or lesbian doesn’t keep someone from being a good solider.
Seventy-three percent of the veterans said it would be acceptable to them to serve with homosexuals, and 60% said that being gay or lesbian “has little bearing on a service member’s ability to perform their duties.”
In fact, most say they’ve already served with homosexual troops — 58% of the vets polls said there were people in their most recent unit that they thought were gay or lesbian.
