By John Tozzi
“For some reason, the military seems more afraid of gay people than they are against terrorists,” he told Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice when she testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Ackerman is a senior member of the panel.”They're very brave with the terrorists. If the terrorists ever got a hold of this information, they could get a platoon of lesbians to chase us out of Baghdad,” he said.The Bayside rep and others have blasted the Defense Department for sticking to its ban on openly gay service members even when it means sending translators fluent in Arabic, Farsi and other key languages home.He asked Rice to consider hiring gay translators to help fill a gap in qualified linguists at the State Department, which does not discriminate based on sexual orientation. Rice said she would look into it.It is unclear how many translators may have been discharged because they are gay. A Pentagon spokesman did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment.According to a 2005 study by the Government Accountability Office, 9,488 active troops were dismissed between 1994, when the “don't ask, don't tell” policy was brokered, and 2003. Of those, 322 “had some skills in a foreign language that [the Department of Defense] had considered to be especially important,” the study said.At the same time, the State Department is expanding its corps of translators in the United States and diplomatic posts in 172 countries. Between 2001 and 2005, the number of foreign service jobs needing language skills grew from 2,581 to 3,267, according to a separate GAO study last year.But the State Department had trouble filling the spots, particularly in Mideast posts, “where 37 percent of all language-designated positions were filled by staff without the language skills required,” according to the report.Ackerman, the chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East, said there were roughly three dozen Farsi and Arabic translators removed from the military who could work for the State Department even though they are gay.”Can we marry up those two, or maybe that's the wrong word,” Ackerman quipped. “Can we have some kind of union of those two issues?”Rice replied that she was “not aware of the availability of people but will certainly look.”Reach reporter John Tozzi by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 174.
