More and more lawmakers of both parties are increasingly disillusioned by the military's policy of exclusion and discrimination.

The American people could not be clearer about their opposition to the continued exclusion of lesbian and gay Americans from our armed forces. Support for repealing the military's ban has grown by fifteen percent in the South, eight percent among moderate Republicans and nine percent among Catholics. In virtually every community, constituents are sending a clear message to their elected leaders that the time has come to repeal 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell.' Our nation supports treating everyone who sacrifices for our national defense, whether gay or straight, with the dignity and respect they deserve.

For centuries, as pope and emperor tore each other apart in their quarrels over power, the excluded went on living on the fringe, like lepers, of whom true lepers are only the illustration ordained by God to make us understand this wondrous parable, so that in saying 'lepers' we would understand 'outcast, poor, simple, excluded, uprooted from the countryside, humiliated in the cities.' But we did not understand; the mystery of leprosy has continued to haunt us because we have not recognized the nature of the sign.

It was doomed to fail from the very beginning because it's a double standard, because it provides exactly the wrong incentives. It provides incentives for snoops and snitches under this policy.

Lawmakers should be clear that the United States remains committed to ensuring lesbian and gay Americans are treated just like their heterosexual counterparts in the security clearance process. Our national security is too important to be undermined by prejudice and discrimination.

The Blue Ribbon Commission of experts has given us the most accurate estimate of the law's price tag to date. In addition to the $364 million spent to implement a counter-productive law, however, since 1993, our nation has lost the talents and expertise of 10,000 lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender patriots who want to serve our nation. When we fire Arabic translators, helicopter pilots, combat engineers and troops on the ground simply because they are gay, every American pays the price.