We'll keep taking rapists, but no queers just yet, thanks...

As could have been expected, the Obama administration has placed the question of gays in the military way down the list of things to do:

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US Defense Secretary Robert Gates Sunday ruled out an imminent change in the "Don't ask, Don't tell" policy on gays in the military, saying President Barack Obama believes the Pentagon has "a lot on our plates right now."

Gates comments in an interview on Fox television were in response to an assertion by White House spokesman Robert Gibbs in January that Obama would end the ban on homosexuals serving openly in the military.

"We will follow the law, whatever it is," Gates said. "That dialogue, though, has really not progressed very far at this point in the administration."

"I think the president and I feel like we've got a lot on our plates right now, and let's push that one down the road a little bit," he said.

Probably also to be pushed down the road a little bit is an consideration of the military's current policy of giving "moral waivers" to heterosexual enlistees who have been found guilty of rape or sexual assault (as reported by Waldo).

Give the administration some time: after all, the Democrats have only been promising action on this issue since 1992.

What's nearly two decades between friends?

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