Military accepting openly gay recruits - Local - TheSunNews.com

Yet Smith noted that recruiters have been told to remind applicants that the court injunction could quickly be reversed. If that occurred, she said, statements by a recruit that he or she is homosexual could be used to reject them immediately, or discharge them if they had been accepted into the service.

Under the don't ask, don't tell law, enacted in 1993 during the Clinton administration, recruits have not been asked about their sexual orientation - a policy that the Pentagon said would remain in effect while the litigation continues.

But also under the law, anyone who freely admits he or she is a homosexual is removed from the ranks of the military.

Last week, Undersecretary for Personnel and Readiness Clifford L. Stanley reminded recruiters in a memo not to ask service members or applicants about their sexual orientation.

Many advocates, including Aubrey Sarvis, executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, urged would-be recruits to proceed carefully.

"During this interim period of uncertainty," Sarvis said, "service members must not come out and recruits should use caution if choosing to sign up. The bottom line: If you come out now, it can be used against you in the future by the Pentagon."

One of the first to take the opportunity to enlist was former Army Lt. Dan Choi, an Iraq war veteran who came out on the "Rachel Maddow Show" in March 2009. The West Point graduate was discharged this year for being gay.

Choi, 29, made an event of his re-enlistment, tweeting his movements as he strolled through Manhattan to the Times Square recruiting station. There, he rapped on the glass door, entered and asked to enlist in the Marines.

They said he was too old, so Choi filled out papers to re-enlist in the Army.

"We're still in a war, and soldiers are needed," said Choi, adding: "I have a newfound faith in our government that at least one branch is on the side of the Constitution, is on the side of the people."

In Los Angeles, army recruiters were abiding by the Pentagon's new directive but they did not report a groundswell of new recruits.

"Right now we can't ask but they can tell," said Fernando Sanjurjo, spokesman for the army's Los Angeles Recruiting Battalion. "We're going to do whatever we're told to do and drive on. But no influx yet."

Sanjurjo added that potential recruits are being told that the "don't ask don't tell" policy could be reinstated at any time by the appellate courts.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.