Pauline Jelinek of the Associated Press reports:
Defense Secretary Robert Gates is urging gays in the military to answer a Pentagon survey on the policy that bans them from serving openly, but advocacy groups worry the poll may be biased against gays or that those who participate could be exposed and expelled.
“I strongly encourage gays and lesbians who are in the military to fill out these forms,” Gates said of the poll e-mailed to some 400,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines. “We organized this in a way to protect their privacy and the confidentiality of their responses … and it’s important that we hear from them as well as everybody else.”
[…]
The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network said earlier Thursday that the Defense Department has not agreed to grant immunity to anyone inadvertently outed during the survey, intended to help a special working group decide how repeal of the policy might be implemented and how that could affect the military.
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