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If the Israeli military manages to make gays in uniform work, I suspect it can be done, even for a military that deals with aggressive combat operations on a regular basis. Furthermore, several people here have pointed out that some of the few gays who actually **WANT** to be in the military and succeed are lesbians. So yes, the U.S. Army will probably survive this mess, even though it will cause major recruitment problems and a lot of well-publicized "blanket party" incidents that I will end up having to cover as a reporter, when soldiers decide to ask for a court-martial rather than accepting non-judicial punishment, knowing their fellow soldiers are not going to vote to convict them of beating up a "open and out" homosexual. That will be truly horrible for good order and discipline, and we'll be back to Vietnam-era problems of "fragging" when soldiers can't trust their fellow soldiers. But that's not the point. Congressman Skelton had an opportunity to stand up to Nancy Pelosi and say, "Thus far and NO FARTHER!" If Pelosi is not stupid, she understands that this is an issue on which Skelton could lose his race for re-election, and therefore would have "cut him loose" not only to speak against but also to aggressively act against her pro-gay agenda. So we have a situation here were either the Speaker of the House is 1) so politically stupid that she's willing to risk losing a major conservative Democrat in a seat where anyone other than Skelton will be much more cf an opponent, or 2) she is so ideologically radical that she doesn't care about political realities and is forcing what she believes to be a civil rights issue down the throat of even the most conservative Democrats, or 3) Skelton was threatened with loss of his commmittee chairmanship or some other dire penalty, and doesn't have the political backbone to stand up to the Speaker of the House when she forces San Francisco politically correct stuff down his throat. One of his opponents has already turned this into a campaign issue. It is no secret that as a reporter outside Fort Leonard Wood, I've supported Congressman Skelton for years because of what he has done for the military. He is virtually the only Democrat I would consider supporting outside our local area, where there are still a lot of old-school Southern Democrats, and that's a common sentiment about Skelton in this area. Several people on Free Republic have already pointed out that Skelton has recently been avoiding hard questions from the media. I may be one of the few reporters out there who can ask those questions and insist on an answer. The Pulaski County Daily News has more readers than any other media organization that covers Fort Leonard Wood, Skelton's campaign staff know that, and I do not intend to play "softball" on this issue. Congressman Skelton needs to answer some very serious questions about how this vote got to the House floor and wasn't stopped in the House Armed Services Committee, where he apparently had the votes to kill it. I fully intend to make sure those questions get asked, and that the answers make sense.