As the House Armed Services Committee prepares to hold hearings on the implementation of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) repeal, House Republicans and potential GOP presidential contenders continue to voice their support for bringing back the ban against open service. And of all the right-wing spokespeople, Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association has been most vocal and effective in building opposition to the change — pushing Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-MN), Mike Huckabee (R-AR) and Haley Barbour (R-MS) to publicly endorse reinstating the ban, despite the overwhelming opposition of the American people.

Yesterday, Fischer — whose organization has been labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center — posted a new piece warning that unless DADT is reinstated, children could be taught by openly-gay teachers:

And what about families who rely on on DoD schools for their children’s education? If LGBT personnel teach and pro-gay indoctrination is allowed in military-run classrooms, does the DoD have any way of determining how many families will choose not to re-enlist because of this? If pro-marriage service-members want educational alternatives because of LGBT curricula in DoD classrooms, will alternatives be provided, or will they be forced to suffer the brainwashing of their children as long as they serve?

The GOP candidates have yet to endorse this line of argumentation, but they have all previously agreed with Fischer that the next President must bring the country back to its Christian roots and have generally accepted his premise that gay people are harmful to society.

Newt Gingrich dismissed the idea of outlawing gay teachers in public schools in 2005, but on Monday he wholeheartedly defended the AFA as a “Christian” organization. “You bring a series of allegations that I can’t check about a group that is largely a Christian based membership group,” he said when I read to him a series of anti-gay statements made by Fischer.

A new study from The Williams Institute (PDF) estimates that 3.5 percent of adults in the United States identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual and 0.3 percent identify as transgender. The new figures represent consistencies across a number of national studies that have invited participants to disclose their sexual orientation and gender identity:

The analyses suggest that there are more than 8 million adults in the US who are LGB, comprising 3.5% of the adult population. This is split nearly evenly between lesbian/gay and bisexual identified individuals, 1.7% and 1.8%, respectively. There are also nearly 700,000 transgender individuals in the US. Given these findings, it seems reasonable to assert that approximately 9 million Americans identify as LGBT.

However, studies of same-sex sexual behavior and same-sex sexual attraction show much higher numbers. An average of 8.2 percent Americans (nearly 19 million) have actually had sexual interactions with the same sex. The numbers for same-sex attraction are even higher: 11 percent of Americans (nearly 25.6 million) acknowledge that they have had them. (These figures more closely represent the common 10 percent estimate most people know from Alfred Kinsey’s studies of sexuality in 1948 and 1953.)

The disparity between these numbers confirms challenges in measuring the true population of LGBT people. As the study points out: “Identity, behavior, attraction, and relationships all capture related dimensions of sexual orientation but none of these measures completely addresses the concept.”

The study’s recommendation for asking sexual orientation and gender identity to large-scale surveys echoes a similar recommendation for data collection offered by the Institute of Medicine last week. The true impact of “LGBT” policies can only be measured if the questions continue to be asked.

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-CA) seemed taken aback this afternoon when the four chiefs of the armed forces testified that they had not run into any major problems in implementing the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. The question came at a full committee hearing examining the “Repeal of Law and Policies Governing Service of Openly Gay and Lesbian Service Members Files”:

- GEN. PETER CHIARELLI – VICE CHIEF OF ARMY: “I had a session with commanders last Friday, they have indicated no issues so far in Tier I and Tier II training as they get ready to kick off our Tier III training.”

- GEN. JAMES AMOS – CHIEF OF THE MARINE CORPS: “And I’m looking for specifically for issues coming out of the Tier II and Tier III training and to be honest with you, Chairman, we’ve not seen it…there hasn’t been the recalcitrant push back, there hasn’t been the anxiety over it from the forces in the field.”

- GEN. NORTON SCHWARTZ – CHIEF OF AIR FORCE: “We are mitigating the risk in the way we are approaching this and so I’m more comfortable than I was on the 22 of December, but we still have a ways to go and it requires the constant attention of all of us to bring this home.”

- ADM. GARY ROUGHEAD – CHIEF OF NAVY: “I’m very comfortable. I was very comfortable in making the recommendation last December and it’s consistent with what I continue to see in the Navy today.”

Watch a compilation:

McKeon — who has long opposed repeal — and has previously suggested that he would support legislation to slow it down, responded by softening his position and claiming that he only objected to the “process” not the substance of the repeal legislation. “I think one of the problems I had…was kind of the way it was presented to us and given to us,” he said. “And so my concern was more the procedure of how it was all laid out. But that’s past and now we’re moving forward.”

Back in November, McKeon described repeal as “disruptive” and “unwise.” “I don’t think the military should be used as a political football,” he said of the Democrats’ efforts to repeal the policy. Amos was also against the change, arguing that if gays were allowed to serve without hiding their sexual orientation, the Marines could be so distracted that they would die in the line of duty.