Polls Average 58% Support for DADT Repeal

Openly gay Lt. Dan Choi, on duty in the National Guard, this week

As the debate over how and when to get rid of America's anachronistic policy of excluding openly gay men and lesbian from serving in the Armed Forces, lots of polling is being conducted to see how much public opinion has changed from 1993. The answer is, quite a lot.

Nate Silver has analyzed the data and summarizes the results as:

Four organizations -- FOX, Gallup, Quinnipiac, and CNN -- have released polls on Don't Ask Don't Tell since Obama's inauguration. They show an average of 58 percent saying that Don't Ask Don't Tell should be repealed and that gays and lesbians should be allowed to serve openly in the military, and 35 percent opposed.

The latest poll is from Quinnipiac University and was a nationalsurvey conducted February 2-8, 2010 of 2,617 registered voters for ashockingly low margin of error of +/- 1.9 percentage points.

Some highlights:

Homosexuals should be able to openly serve in the U.S. military, American voters say 57 - 36 percent. Voters also say 66 - 31 percent the current policy of not allowing openly gay men and women to serve is discrimination, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

But by a 54 - 38 percent margin, American voters say gays in the military should face restrictions on exhibiting their sexual orientation on the job, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN- uh-pe-ack) University poll finds.

Voters from military households with an active or reserve member or a veteran in their family split 48 - 47 percent on ending "don't ask; don't tell." Support for repeal is 72 - 23 percent among Democrats and 56 - 37 percent among independent voters. Republicans oppose repeal 53 - 40 percent. Men support repeal 51 - 44 percent; women support it 62 - 29 percent.

On other related questions, American voters say:

82 - 10 percent that the military should stop pursuing disciplinary action against gays who are outed against their will; 65 - 30 percent, including 57 - 38 percent among voters in military families, that ending "don't ask; don't tell" will not be divisive or hurt the ability to fight effectively; 50 - 43 percent that the Pentagon should not provide for domestic partners of gay personnel; Split 45 - 46 percent on whether heterosexual personnel should be required to share quarters with gay personnel.

Interesting, eh? Hat/tips to TalkingPointsMemo and TowleRoad.