Judge Walker’s decision against Proposition 8 in California only bolstered the ongoing conservative campaign to oust three judges who overturned an Iowa law banning same-sex marriage and now, at least three potential Republican presidential hopefuls — former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, Senator Rick Santorum, and Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty — are tripping over themselves to endorse the Iowa effort:

- GINGRICH: “Iowans are unique in that they have the ability to send a very clear and simple message that the court’s behavior is unacceptable by just voting ‘no’ on the three judges who are up for reappointment. If a majority of Iowans vote ‘no,’ that will send a signal to the whole country that there is a citizens revolt under way.”

- SANTORUM: “People should decide issues, not courts. This court attempted to impose its values on society.”

- PAWLENTY: “The notion that judges stand for election is embedded in the Iowa Constitution…I would want to look at their records as a whole, but the extent that they have opined or decided they are not going to support traditional marriage, that’s not something I would agree with.”

Social issues like gay marriage may still be a driving force in Republican politics, but given Ken Mehlman’s recent admission of his homosexuality, Ted Olson’s strong advocacy for marriage equality, and the growing support for marriage equality in the states, gay issues aren’t as important in the conservative movement as they were just six years ago. As former McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt told Sam Stein today, “[t]here is a strong conservative case to be made in favor of gay marriage. Marriage is an institution that strengthens and stabilizes society. It is an institution that has the capacity to bring profound joy and happiness to people and it is a matter of equality and keeping faith of one of the charters of the nation, the right to live your life.”

“More and more conservatives are saying that opposition to gay marriage would not be a litmus test for membership in the GOP. And more conservatives are making the case that no more do you want big government conservatives in the bedroom than big government liberals telling you how to live your life,” he added.

Indeed, some conservatives are even questioning the ability of candidates like Gingrich to carry the so-called “values mantra.” Gingrich “is a super-smart man, but he doesn’t know anything about commitment to marriage,” Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) said this past Friday of the thrice-married former House speaker. “He’s the last person I’d vote for for president of the United States. His life indicates he does not have a commitment to the character traits necessary to be a great president.”

Yesterday, after initially suggesting that he supported a constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage, Florida Governor Charlie Crist issued a clarification statement saying that while he does not support same sex marriage, he opposes a constitutional amendment prohibiting it. He favors civil unions. “I am fully supportive of civil unions and will continue to be as a United States Senator, but believe marriage is a sacred institution between a man and a woman,” he said. As he put it in June, “If you want to have couples or partners who want to reside together [in civil unions], I don’t have a problem with that…I’ve always supported civil unions, but I think marriage in the traditional sense is what I believe in,” Crist told Time magazine.

But that’s not what he believed in 2008. Back then, Crist had abandoned his “live and let live” attitude and announced his support for The Florida Marriage Amendment, or Proposition 2. That language prohibited not just same-sex marriages; it also outlawed civil unions:

This amendment protects marriage as the legal union of only one man and one woman as husband and wife and provides that no other legal union that is treated as marriage or the substantial equivalent thereof shall be valid or recognized.”

During the campaign for Proposition 2, supporters of the amendment maintained that civil unions should be prohibited alongside marriage, since they grant gay couples all of the rights of marriage. “We believed, during the campaign, that civil unions would very likely be prohibited by the amendment,” Equality Florida’s Brian Winsield told me. He remains hopeful, however, that the measure, which passed with 62% of the vote, would allow for domestic partnerships — arrangements that grant couples only some of the rights of marriage. Crist presumably has two positions on that as well.

Over at Change.org, Mike Jones highlights this latest bit of gay-baiting from Texas Governor Rick Perry (R), who is running for re-election in the state. In a rather bizarre exchange about economic growth, Perry suggested that same sex marriage would depress job creation:

Social issues might be in the back seat, but they’re still in the car: “There is still a land of opportunity, friends — it’s called Texas,” Perry said. “We’re creating more jobs than any other state in the nation. … Would you rather live in a state like this, or in a state where a man can marry a man?”

It’s a page out of Bush’s 2004 playbook and somehow sounds stale in the context of today’s economic concerns (and not to mention wrong, since marriage equality would probably aid the sate’s economy). Texas, of course, carried out Bush’s strategy to the fullest and passed a constitutional amendment that defined marriage as a union between one man and one woman, and prohibited the recognition of any other type of union. “Texans have made a decision about marriage and if there is some other state that has a more lenient view than Texas then maybe that’s a better place for them to live,” Perry said in 2005, while signing a measure that sent the amendment to a vote.

His attempts to push gay people and their supports out of the state however, may prove problematic, since a growing number of Texans are slowly embracing marriage equality. In 1996, just 26% of Texans supported same-sex marriage, now 35% do. Those numbers aren’t yet high enough for the Texas GOP to soften its anti-gay rhetoric (in fact, it seems to be ramping it up), but I suspect that it will soon prove difficult to maintain this level of hostility without alienating voters.

Just days after flip flopping on his support for the health care law, Gov. Charlie Crist (I-FL) had to clarify his stance on a federal amendment defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Crist has supported efforts to ban gay marriage in the past and on Sunday, when asked if he is “still in favor of a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage,” Crist signaled that he was:

HENRY: Another big issue, same-sex marriage. Many conservatives like Marco Rubio support a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. But this week, the former Republican Party Chairman Ken Mehlman came out and said he’s gay and he called on conservatives to kind of move to the political center and be more tolerant on this issue. You have previously said in your gubernatorial campaign, you supported a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. Now that you’re trying to occupy the political center, are you still in favor of a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage?

CRIST: I feel the same way, yes, because I feel that marriage is a sacred institution, if you will. But I do believe in tolerance. I’m a live and let live kind of guy, and while I feel that way about marriage, I think if partners want to have the opportunity to live together, I don’t have a problem with that. [...]

HENRY: But governor, doesn’t it sounds like you having it both ways by saying live and let live, but I also support a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. If it’s live and let live, why would you ban same-sex marriage?

CRIST: Well, everything is in a matter of degree, Ed, and when it becomes to the institution of marriage, I believe that it is between a man and a woman, it’s just how I feel.

Watch it:

Hours later, Crist clarified his statement, saying that while does not support a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, he still opposes same-sex marriage. “In an interview that aired today, I was not discussing an amendment to the U.S. Constitution banning same-sex marriage, which I do not support, but rather reaffirming my position regarding Florida’s constitutional ban that I articulated while running for Governor,” he said. “In fact, the interviewer’s question reflected just that. I am fully supportive of civil unions and will continue to be as a United States Senator, but believe marriage is a sacred institution between a man and a woman.”

This isn’t the first time Crist has changed his position on LGBT issues. As a Republican, governor and senatorial candidate Charlie Crist supported the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) policy, but as an independent, he now supports its repeal. Crist has also supported efforts to ban gay marriage in Florida, but has said that civil unions between gays are “fine.” In 2007, however, he asked the Republican party to stop spending money promoting “a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage in Florida” even after he signed a petition “to place an amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage on the 2008 election ballot.” “When asked if he supported civil rights on the basis of sexual orientation, Crist said ‘no.’”

On July 28, 2006, Crist told a radio show that he “haven’t taken a position yet” on the right of gays to adopt, but only days after — in an interview by the Florida Baptist Witness — “Crist answered ‘no’ to repealing the ban on gays’ adopting.”

When Judge Vaughn Walker struck down Proposition 8, Fox News barely mentioned the story and its most prominent conservative commentators ignored it entirely. Yesterday, after the Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder reported that former RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman — who had orchestrated President Bush’s gay-bating 2004 re-election campaign — was coming out as gay, Fox News Channel remained similarly mum and as of this posting has yet to run a single segment on the story.

A Wonk Room review of Critical Mention reveals that CNN mentioned the name “Mehlman” 19 times, MSNBC reported on it 12 times (searches for “gay” and “Ken” produced similar results, with Fox News stuck at 0):

It’s unclear why Fox News ignored the story, since some Republicans have embraced Mehlman’s coming out. Current Republican Party chairman, Michael Steele, for instance, issued a supportive statement: “His announcement, often a very difficult decision which is only compounded when done on the public stage, reaffirms for me why we are friends and why I respect him personally and professionally.” Mehlman has also said that President Bush has been “incredibly supportive” of his coming out.

Ignoring stories which undermine conservative causes, however, is the norm at Fox. Earlier this month, Fox News refused to run a single segment on Dr. Laura Schlessinger’s racially-charged rant, after which she resigned from talk radio.

Former RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman’s coming out provided the media with an opportunity to review the GOP’s record on gay rights and explore the Mehlman’s role in crafting President Bush’s 2004 re-election strategy. On MSNBC, Mehlman’s revelation engendered an even more honest discussion when, during a segment with GOProud chairman Christopher Barron, daytime anchor Thomas Roberts — who is an openly gay anchor — discussed his orientation on air:

BARRON: We know that opinion poll after opinion poll shows that the single most important factor in determining how someone feels about gay rights or about gay issues is whether or not they know someone who is gay or lesbian….

ROBERTS: I think for probably most heterosexual Americans this isn’t going to come as a big deal, but I think for millions of gay and lesbian Americans — me included — find this to be kind of a shocking admission, especially when Mehlman’s leadership, in the positions that he held, came at a time when he was part of talks that would have put discrimination into the Constitution. When they were ramping up anti gay rhetoric and now he wants to come out say, ‘hey I’m one of you.’ So how does he go about trying to get millions of gay and lesbian Americans to believe that he is not just a big hypocrite.

Watch it:

Indeed, despite Bush and Mehlman’s effort to “put discrimination into the Constitution,” support for gay rights is increasing across the country. As recently as 2004, “same-sex marriage did not have majority support in any state.” Today, according to researchers at Columbia University, “17 states are over that line.” Similarly, CBS News poll found that 77% of Americans now say they know someone who is gay or lesbian,” an increase of 35 percentage points since 1992.

On Saturday, Dan Manning — an openly gay military veteran who was discharged under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and is now running for Kansas House of Representatives in Wichita — arrived home from work “to find a death threat attached to his front door.”

The threat, compiled of newspaper clippings so as to resemble a classic ransom note, calls Manning a “homo” and “fagit” and predicts that he “will die”:

“It’s not completely surprising to me,” Manning told me during a phone interview. “I’ve not made any effort to hide my sexual orientation, I’ve been open about it and my opponent has known about it since day one.” There is “no indication” that his Republican opponent Brenda Landwehr “or anyone in her campaign is behind this,” Mannning said, but added that “as I’ve been out talking to constituents in the district, they’ve made mention that they’ve heard stuff about me. They didn’t say it came specifically from Brenda. One can assume it may have come from her. Again, there is no proof, and I would not accuse her of such.”

The threat did come out of the blue however, since the campaign has eschewed social issues and both candidates have focused on the economy, jobs and education. “My personal life is not something to talk about, on the priority list,” Manning said. “There are a lot of issues in Kansas that need to be addressed, the same way as the rest of the U.S.” “Some people are going to try to make my sexual orientation the prominent issue of the campaign. But the feeling I’ve got from my constituents that I had a chance to speak to, they don’t care, as long as I’m qualified, I’m going to represent their interests.”

In 2005, voters in Kansas approved a constitutional amendment that defined marriage as a civil contract between two persons who are of opposite sex and declared “all other marriages to be contrary to public policy and void.” The measure, which Landwehr supported, passed with 70% of the vote.

Arranged by hight at last night’s GOP Senate debate (see 2:00 on the video), the three Republican candidates hoping to unseat Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) condemned the the Senator for placing “special interests” ahead of the needs of the military in advocating for the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell:

- Treasury Department official David Malpass: “The military commanders have to have a huge say in this matter. And so I dont’ agree with Senator Gillibrand on her having the strong view coming from New York state, without the experience in the military….We now have General Petraeus in the Afghanistan war…I would be listening to him, rather than as a Senator injecting myself into that type of debate as strongly as Sen. Gillibrand has done.”

- Long Island attorney Bruce Blakeman: “The Generals and Admirals of our military asked for a year to review the policy and make a report to Congress. Senator Gillibrand, pandering to special interest groups, jumped the gun within two months that they asked for that time…I believe if the military leaders asked for a year to review the policy, then we should wait for that report.”

- Westchester Congressman Joe DioGuardi: “My feeling is we need to wait for them to give us their judgment and I would trust that judgment.”

Watch it:

Of course, the actual repeal amendment does accomodate the military’s ongoing study of DADT and would preserve the policy until the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of Defense and the President guarantee that it does not undermine military readiness. The country’s most prominent military leaders — including Gen. David Petraeus, have expressed support for this process, suggesting that they would like to end the failed policy.

But beyond that, in watching this exchanges, it’s difficult to get beyond their assumption that gay people — by their very nature — are so incredibly disruptive to military service that to embark on a parallel track of congressional action and military study is just unthinkable.

NBC’s Jim Miklaszewski is reporting that Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Conway has reiterated his position that if Congress repeals Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Marines who “don’t want to room” with openly gay soldiers should be allowed to live separately:

On a different, but related subject, Conway suggested that if the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” law is repealed, the Marines may consider allowing Marines not to share quarters with homosexuals.

Conway said the Marines may make such housing arrangements “voluntary” to accommodate any “moral concerns.” He said many Marines are “very religious” and because of their moral concerns “don’t want to room” with homosexuals.

But Conway stressed that if the law is repealed, the Marines would take the lead in implementing it. “We cannot be seen as dragging our feet. We’ve got two wars to fight. We’ll implement it and move on,” said Conway.

Conway of course came under intense criticism in March when he told Military.com he will insist that the Marines have the option of not living alongside gay servicemembers. “But I would not ask our Marines to live with someone who is homosexual, if we could possibly avoid it. And to me, it means we have to build BEQs [Bachelor/Base Enlisted Quarters] that have single rooms,” he said.

The Pentagon has tried to distance itself from Conway’s words. In July, after some interpreted the Pentagon’s suggestion that the military might use the results from the DADT survey to make “adjustments to facilities themselves,” Pentagon spokesperson Geoff Morell told me, “no one is considering ‘separate but equal’ bathing or living facilities for you know, gay and straight troops. That’s just not ever a consideration.”

Indeed, should Conway’s request be granted, the United States will become the only nation (of the 25 that have dropped the ban) that segregates its servicemembers on the basis of sexual orientation. As Larry Korb argues in this report, “the militaries of Great Britain, Canada, and Israel amply demonstrate that lifting the ban on openly gay service will not require the U.S. military to provide separate housing, shower, or other common-use facilities for gay and lesbian service members.” In fact, even General Carl Mundy, commandant of the Marine Corps from 1991 to 1995 and an opponent of a repeal, has predicted that segregating the forces “would be absolutely disastrous in the armed forces. …It would destroy any sense of cohesion or teamwork or good order and discipline.”

Servicemembers United has now released a 5 page reaction memo to the Pentagon’s survey of military spouses about repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. This survey is now the second document to come under fire from LGB groups for making “insulting and derogatory assumptions and insinuations about gays and lesbians.” Below are the group’s chief concerns:

- Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ introductory letter states that by responding to the survey, spouses “will help us assess the impact of a change in” DADT. SU argues that this kind of statement “sets the stage for the survey taker by immediately suggesting that there will be an impact, presumably negative, on ‘family readiness’ and recruiting and retention from a change in this law and policy.”

- Use of the term “homosexual.” SU argues that “the unnecessary use of this clinical term can introduce bias into a survey. This is a well known phenomenon, and it is the reason that those opposed to gay equality almost always opt for the term in their rhetoric.”

- Asking spouses about how they’d like to be informed about the policy changes: “The answer choices for this question also unnecessarily hype up the potential impact of repeal. The choices pro-actively suggest and legitimize the possible need to flyer military communities, set up special websites, create special information sessions and courses, and provide counseling and spiritual support in response to this policy change. Such suggestions are ridiculous and offensive. ”

- SU argues that the question about how a spouse would react “If a gay or lesbian Service member lived in your neighborhood with their partner” does not belong in the survey, since “repeal does not create federal recognition of same-sex marriages – a requirement for qualification for on-base family housing.” “Troops with partners, girlfriends, or boyfriends, even if long-term, are not given on-base housing. This question is both misleading of the survey taker, in that it suggests that repeal would permit gay and lesbian couples to live in on-base housing, and wholly unnecessary in a survey on the impact of repeal, because this scenario would not be a result of repeal.”

Read the entire memo here, and you’ll see how the Pentagon could have done a better job of developing some of these questions. Part of the problem could be that the people who write these surveys have internalized a lot of society’s assumptions and biases about gay people and have inadvertently inserted them into the questionnaire. Only when they’re identified by a group that’s attune to them, do they shine like white under a black light.

The other possibility is that the military feels like it has to ask these questions in this way to minimize disruption once the policy is repealed and so it doesn’t think it’s necessary to consult with LGBT groups before mailing the document. Or, perhaps even more cynically, the Pentagon is feeling pressure to appear less friendly or considerate towards gay servicemembers and so it either consciously or carelessly drafted questions that would piss off groups on the left while appeasing those on the right. What do you think?

Andrew Gelman, Jeffrey Lax, and Justin Phillips — all professors of political science at Columbia University — point out that while support for same-sex marriage is approaching the 50% point on the national level, “the more important turning points in public opinion, however, may be occurring at the state level, especially if states continue to control who can get married”:

According to our research, as recently as 2004, same-sex marriage did not have majority support in any state. By 2008, three states had crossed the 50 percent line. Today, 17 states are over that line (more if you consider the CNN estimate correct that just over 50 percent of the country supports gay marriage).

In 2008, the year Proposition 8 was approved, just under half of Californians supported same-sex marriage,. Today, according to polls, more than half do. A similar shift has occurred in Maine, where same-sex marriage legislation was repealed by ballot measure in 2009.

In both New York and New Jersey, where state legislatures in the past have defeated proposals to allow same-sex marriage, a majority now support it.

And support for same-sex marriage has increased in all states, even in relatively conservative places like Wyoming and Kentucky. Only Utah is still below where national support stood in 1996. Among the five states that currently allow same-sex marriage, Iowa is the outlier. It is the only one of those states where support falls below half, at 44 percent.

Be sure to wonder over to the NYT website to see how support in the states has evolved:

The authors predict that the trend will continue, since overwhelming majorities of younger people in almost every state support same-sex marriage. Naturally, “as new voters come of age, and as their older counterparts exit the voting pool, it’s likely that support will increase, pushing more states over the halfway mark.”

Support for marriage in the states that allow it is particularly significant, since political scientists have long suggested that the people who know gay people are much more likely to support gay rights. A recent CBS News poll, for instance, found that 77% of Americans now say they know someone who is gay or lesbian,” an increase of 35 percentage points since 1992. Accordingly, the increasing prominence of gay people and personal “coming out” will play an important role in building support for the movement.

Although the Ninth Circuit stayed Judge Walker’s decision striking down Prop 8 last week, it also suggested that an anti-gay group’s attempt to appeal Walker’s decision must ultimately be dismissed unless the State of California agrees to join the suit.  Because both Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) and Attorney General Jerry Brown (D) have refused to defend Prop 8, it’s reasonably likely that the unconstitutional ballot measure will cease to exist when the Ninth Circuit hears the anti-gay group’s appeal in December.

In a press conference on Friday, however, Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman announced that she would join the appeal supporting Prop 8 if she is elected governor of California:

“The issue right now is, as I understand is ‘Will Proposition 8 have the appropriate support to actually make an appeal to the circuit court of appeals?’ ” Whitman said. “And I think the governor, the attorney general today has to defend the constitution and has to enable the judicial process to go along and has to enable an appeal to go through. So if I was governor, I would give that ruling standing to be able to appeal to the circuit court.“

Whitman’s decision to lend a hand to discrimination is unfortunate, but it is likely to prove futile.  Under the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure, a party wishing to appeal an district court’s decision must file a notice of appeal “with the district clerk within 30 days after the judgment or order appealed from is entered.”  Yet, even if Whitman were elected governor, she would not be sworn in until January 3, 2011 — far too late to appeal a judgment that was entered in early August of 2010.

As the Supreme Court recently explained in Bowles v. Russell, “the taking of an appeal within the prescribed time is ‘mandatory and jurisdictional,’” and Bowles involved a much more compelling case for bending these rules than does the Prop 8 litigation.  In Bowles, a district judge incorrectly told a party that he had 17 days left to file an appeal, when in fact he only had 14 days to do so.  Nevertheless, the Supreme Court held, the deadline is unforgiving even when a party misses it solely because a federal judge gave them bad information.

Whitman’s case presents none of the sympathetic facts present in Bowles.  California has ample notice that one of its laws has been declared unconstitutional, and its duly elected officials decided not to contest this declaration.  Moreover, if Whitman were allowed to join the Prop 8 appeal in January, she would have to file a notice of appeal months after the deadline had passed.  It is exceedingly unlikely that the courts will tolerate such delinquency.

In other words, it’s unlikely that Whitman’s promise to appeal Judge Walker’s decision is anything more than empty pandering.  She may succeed in turning out her anti-gay voters this way, but she cannot restart a stopwatch that will have already run out of time.

Politico has obtained a copy of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell survey sent out to 150,000 military spouses yesterday. The document is part of a broader Pentagon study designed to determine the consequences of repealing the ban against open service. Earlier this year, the Pentagon came under attack from groups representing gay and lesbian servicemembers after portions of a separate survey of active and reservist troops became public. Citing privacy concerns, activist groups advised closeted gay members against participating in the study and denounced it as insulting.

This 13-page document — which begins with a letter from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates informing spouses that the survey “will help us assess the impact of a change in the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell law and policy on family readiness and recruiting and retention” — has sparked similar condemnation from LGB groups. “This survey of military spouses contains many of the same insulting and derogatory assumptions and insinuations about gays and lesbian that ran throughout the last survey,” Servicemembers United said in a statement. “Answer choices suggest things like the Defense Department possibly distributing flyers in military neighborhoods if, as they say, ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ is repealed and that the ‘readiness’ of military families might somehow be impacted.”

Below are several sample questions. Read the full survey HERE:

Q: Do you have any family members, friends or acquaintances, including coworkers, whom you believe to be gay or lesbian?

A: Yes, one, Yes, more than one, No

—

Q: How important a factor would a repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell be to you in making decisions about your spouse’s future in the military?

A: Very important, Important, Neither important nor unimportant, Unimportant, Very unimportant, Don’t Know

—

Q: Would a repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell affect your willingness to recommend military service to a family member or close friend?

A: Yes, I would be more likely to recommend military service to a family member or close friend

Yes, I would be less likely to recommend military service to a family member or close friend

No, it would not affect my willingness to recommend military service to a family member or close friend

Don’t Know

The Pentagon insists that the survey will allow for a smoother repeal of the policy by informing the military of possible conflicts that could arise in community life. It also expects that repeal will be a low priority for spouses, in the context of other concerns like educational opportunities and access to medical care.

The survey’s recipients were selected at random from the Pentagon’s database of registered spouses, which does not include the partners of gay and lesbian troops. The Pentagon is engaged in a separate process of contacting and incorporating the voices of LGB partners. In fact, according to one Pentagon source, the co-chairs of the DADT study group have already met with several spouses of gay and lesbian members.

Spouses will have until September 27th to complete the survey. The results of the broader DADT study are expected at the beginning of December.

Tomorrow, the military will mail paper surveys to 150,000 spouses of military servicemembers to gauge their reaction to repealing the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell law. The survey is part of a larger Pentagon effort to study how allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would affect military and family life. It comes on the heels of a controversial and highly criticized survey of 400,000 active military and reserve members.

Pentagon sources tell me that this second questionnaire will be analyzed in a qualitative, rather than a quantitative manner. The military will try to assess if repealing the policy will affect military retention and recruitment, and the importance of the issue in the context of other concerns like educational opportunities and medical benefits. The Pentagon will work with groups like Servicemembers United to reach out to the spouses of gay and lesbian troops.

“We are asking the family members, if we were to change the law, are there any impacts at all that might affect family readiness and military community life,” DoD spokesperson Cynthia Smith told me. “We understand that military spouses play an important role in a servicemembers’ decision about whether or not they’re going to stay in the military. It’s a retention issue. It’s aslo a recruiting issue becaue we know that spouses are influencers in local communities.”

Interestingly, one source told me that the Pentagon expects DADT to rank low on the list of priorities and said that past focus groups have shown that family members have other, more pressing concerns.

Military spouses will have until September 27th to complete and mail in the survey.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell scholar Nathaniel Frank — formerly of the Palm Center — is out with a new report detailing how the ban against open service undermines the military — which supporters of the policy claim to be preserving. But as Frank explains, “[f]ar from protecting military readiness, the policy has harmed it, sacrificing badly needed personnel that is replaced with less qualified talent; undermining cohesion, integrity, and trust through forced dishonesty; hurting the morale of gay troops by limiting their access to support services; wasting hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars; invading the privacy of all service members—gay and non-gay alike—by casting a cloud of suspicion and uncertainty over the intimate lives of everyone in the armed forces; and damaging the military’s reputation which makes it harder to recruit the best and brightest America has to offer.”

Frank’s report substantiates what many of the recent personal stories of closeted soldiers have described anecdotally. He lists 12 ways in which the military is harmed by the policy (I’m excerpting the top five below):

1. Waste the talents of thousands of essential personnel with “critical skills” who were fired for their sexual orientation — 757 troops with “critical occupations” were fired under the policy between fiscal years 1994 and 2003.

2. Strike at the heart of unit cohesion by breaking apart cohesive fighting teams — a 2009 study published in Military Psychology found that sexual orientation disclosure is positively related to unit cohesion, while concealment and harassment are related negatively. Forcing troops to conceal their sexual orientation appears to reduce cohesion.

3. Hamper recruitment and retention by shrinking the pool of potential enlistees — an additional 41,000 qualified gay Americans might join if the ban were lifted, and an additional 4,000 personnel might remain in uniform

4. Lower the quality of military personnel by discharging capable gay troops leaving slots to be filled through “moral waivers” that admit felons, substance abusers, and other high-risk recruits.

5. Infect the morale of the estimated 66,000 gay, lesbian, and bisexual troops and their military peers who must serve in a climate of needless alienation, dishonesty, and fear

It’s worth pointing out that while these effects on military readiness are easily verifiable (by the Pentagon’s own reports no less), the claims from the other side about how repealing the policy would harm the institution have yet to be experienced by any of the 26 NATO allies that allow open service.

Matt Lewis has an interesting piece following the fallout from the Ann Coulter/HomoCon/WorldNetDaily controversy. To recap, this is the one in which the sharp-tounged but no longer terribly relevant Coulter was dropped from WorldNet’s “Taking America Back National Conference” for agreeing to speak at HomoCon, GOProud’s first annual conservative gay event. WND editor Joseph Farah punted on Coulter because, as he put it, “it would not make sense for us to have Ann speak to a conference about taking America back when she clearly does not recognize that the ideals to be espoused there simply do not include the radical and very ‘unconservative’ agenda represented by GOProud.”

Well, Lewis tracked some up and coming conservative leaders and they took issue with Farah’s characterization of conservatism:

“Conservatism and gay rights are actually natural allies,” said S.E. Cupp, conservative columnist and author of “Losing Our Religion: The Liberal Media’s Attack on Christianity.” “Conservatism rightly seeks to keep the government out of our private lives, and when you strip away the politics of pop culture, it’s this assertion of privacy and freedom that the gay rights movement is essentially making.”

This is how institutions evolve and emerge within a conservative culture,” says Jon Henke, a libertarian-leaning blogger. “In time, gay people will be married, extending the valuable social institution of marriage to more people. In time, conservatives will argue that the positive impact that marriage has on the gay community is further evidence of the importance of the institution of marriage.”

National Review’s Dan Foster believes the changing attitudes are largely generational, but added that “a central thread of conservatism, going back to Edmund Burke, is…gradualism.”

The growing acceptance of gay rights within the younger faction of the conservative movement sounds promising, but somehow insufficient and even irrelevant. “In time,” a greater number of conservatives could very well argue about “the positive impact that marriage has on the gay community,” but gay people shouldn’t have to wait. Gradual public acceptance of marriage may be enough for some conservatives who already enjoys the benefits of full equality under the law, but I suspect it’s less acceptable to those still fighting for it.

Some older conservative leaders already agree with this. As Olson asked yesterday on MSNBC’ Andrea Mitchell Reports, “What could be, at the end of the day, more conservative than two loving people, that want to get married, that want to build a family, that want to be part of our neighborhoods and community — that is a conservative value.”

Yesterday, the Iowa Independent broke the story that Jeremy Walters — a Republican candidate for the Iowa State house — posted Facebook messages in which he quoted biblical verses saying that gay people should be “put to death” and suggested that AIDS is a punishment for the sin of homosexuality. Walters’ statements were immediately condemned by One Iowa, the state’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) advocacy organization, and the Iowa Republican party, leading the candidate to remove the posts.

But then Walters contacted me (in response to an earlier request for comment), and in the 15 minute conversation that followed, explained that his outburst was motivated by the recent Prop 8 decision and that he was still uncertain if God was trying to kill gay people:

WALTERS: I just felt people should know what’s in the Bible, you know, scripture…I’m sorry that I even posted that because now I’m getting all of this attention and it’s bad attention, it’s not good attention. What inspired me posting that is because I had a few friends who were both homosexuals and passed away form AIDS.

VOLSKY: I understand that you regret posting it…But do you still believe that AIDS is the result of the sin of homosexuality?

WALTERS: Well, I don’t want to say that I don’t. I just, like I said, had an experience of friends dying….But back to the posting, that post when I posted, I do feel sorry and denounce what I said.

VOLSKY: Ok, so just to be clear, you are denouncing what you said? So you no longer believe that AIDS is God’s way of getting back at the sin of homosexuality?

WALTERS: Well, you know, I want to say that I’ve been seeing a lot of people that are in that lifestyle become with HIV and AIDS, but like I said, you can also get it through dirty needles and things so…. I would have to say that I removed it because it was not right to post it on there and I shouldn’t be picking on their lives, because they’re not picking on my life. I should be an understanding person and not a hater.

Asked what message he has for gay voters, Walters said, “I ask them for forgiveness, I don’t know what else I can do. I feel really bad. Now I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep at night for having this up.” He also assured me that if elected he would take the opinions of people who support gay rights into consideration. “If it came down to the majority of the people in my House district were for gay rights, then I’d take that to that state house and say we need gay rights,” he said.

The Iowa Independent’s Jason Hancock catches Jeremy Walters, a Republican candidate running for the State House in Iowa, quoting biblical verses saying that gay people should be “put to death; their blood shall be upon them” and suggesting that AIDS is a punishment for their sins:

As the Independent notes, Walters has run for office “three times in three different legislative districts” and does not mention social issues on his campaign website. Ironically, he does pledge to protect Iowans’ “rights and freedom”: “The State Government should not have the right to tell us where or when we can or can’t do something like. For example enforcing the National Identification Card and telling us how to raise our children,” he writes.

Walters’ Facebook page also reveals that he is a Birther, a devotee of radio host Alex Jones, and a Ron Paul supporter. ” Once removed, all acts performed by Obama can be declared “null and void ‘ab initio’” and then we can declare RON PAUL the only lawfully elected president and all of Obama’s cabinet can be declare in one fell swoop improvidently appointed! Get rid of this autocratic and corrupt regime now!!,” he wrote in a posting from June 10th.

One Iowa, the state’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) advocacy organization, is calling on the Republican Party of Iowa to disavow Walters’ comments. “Jeremy Walters’ comments are offensive and they have no place in this year’s election,” Carolyn Jenison, the group’s executive director, said. “We call on the Republican Party of Iowa to denounce Walters’ comments immediately. HIV/AIDS is an epidemic that does not discriminate. It’s a matter of life and death for many Iowans.”

Servicemembers United is celebrating the conclusion of the first portion of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell survey with a questionnaire of its own. The mock survey, designed to promote the organization’s petition to refund the costs of the project, asks a series of ridiculous questions, including:

4. How would you react if one of your comrades saved your life in combat, and then later revealed that he is one of those homo-sexuals?

- Pshaw! That is impossible, because everybody knows that at no time in the history of human conflict have homo-sexuals ever managed to overcome their natural cowardice and successfully engage the enemy.

- I would immediately report him to my chain of command, as is my duty as a member of the United States Military, and also because I am a soulless robot.

- My sincere and whole-hearted faith in the unchanging, all-knowing laws of this great country would enable me to turn in the deviant homo-sexual to my chain of command, and I would suffer no trauma or second-thoughts, because I am actually a brainwashed North Korean storm-trooper.

- I would be conflicted, but would still turn my comrade in, because I am a spineless, sniveling wimp.

- I would ignore it to preserve morale and unit cohesion (< -- This choice included as part of DoD "Insta-Court Martial" labor-saving initiative)

The survey officially ended on Sunday “and officials at the Pentagon said the final tally on completed responses was 109,883 — a response rate of only about 27.5 percent,” suggesting that the majority of servicemembers simply don’t care about the DADT policy. Responses did pick up in August, however, after the Pentagon received a ‘certificate of confidentiality’ to ensure servicemembers’ anonymity. As of last month, just 10% of those who received the questionnaire filed it out. Still, the final return rate is “below the 30 to 40 percent response rate researchers from the University of Texas at Austin say an average email or online surveys should pull in, and well below the 52 percent participation rate officials at the Office of Personnel Management got in their similarly-structured 2010 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey.”

Servicemembers United has criticized both the tone and the content of the Pentagon’s DADT survey, arguing that some of questions were laced with “bias, inaccuracies, and derogatory assumptions and insinuations about gay and lesbian Americans.” The Pentagon admits that the criticism may have dampened response rates but continues to insist that the answers will help ensure a smooth repeal process. It will distribute a different questionnaire to 150,000 military spouses later this month.

The Palm Center has just released new data showing that the military continues to discharge “mission-critical specialists” just because they’re gay:

The data show that gay discharges included 8 linguists, 20 infantrymen, 16 medical aides, 7 combat engineers, 6 missile artillery operating crew members, and one member of the Special Forces, among others. [...]

The data confirm a long-term trend, and a 2005 Government Accountability Report found that the military fired 757 mission-critical specialists, including 322 linguists, in the first decade of don’t ask, don’t tell.

Interestingly, the group also found “disproportionate discharges on the basis of race and gender. “In the Navy, two officers were discharged in FY 2009 and both were Asian. In the Army, of the five Officers discharged, two were African American, one was Asian and two were white.” Women were also discharged at a disproportionately higher rate than men.

Since 1994, the military has discharged 13,500 soldiers under DADT, at a cost to the taxpayer of more than $363.8 million. The Senate is expected to take up the Defense Authorization bill and the amendment that would begin the process of repealing DADT after it comes back from its August recess.