Don't Ask

As the debate over the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy, and a possible repeal thereof, heats up, Spencer Ackerman points out that Defense Secretary Bob Gates ended the process of asking candidates for Central Intelligence Agency positions whether they were gay as part of lie-detector tests when he ran the agency, and did it two decades ago. The military is different than the CIA obviously, but whatever problems the latter agency has, it doesn't seem that there's been a breakdown of continuity of operations, or problems with blackmail, associated with having openly gay intelligence officers.