More Republicans support gays serving openly in the military than oppose it, a new CBS poll shows.
Just weeks after the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” 48 percent of GOP respondents said they favor “strongly” or “somewhat” the open service of gays and lesbians in the military, while 41 percent oppose it.
The plurality of Republicans voters who support open service has not changed significiantly since DADT was repealed by Congress in December 2010, over the objections of many Republican politicians. Back then, 50 percent of Republican respondents supported the concept of open service for gays and lesbians.
The concept of open service gathers even stronger support among Americans more broadly. In the CBS poll, 68 percent of respondents said that they favored gays and lesbians serving openly in the military. Among this group, only 22 percent of respondents opposed it open service.
The 1993 “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which said that gays and lesbians could serve if they kept their sexual orientations private, was officially repealed on Sept. 20, 2011.
Of course, a president like Reagan could simply reintroduce the same policy the he did without any problem.