I haven't seen this diaried anywhere else, and it seems to have been lost a bit in the brouhaha over the Supreme Court and Health Reform. The article doesn't go into detail, but it does contain the following heartening statement:
"We’re having trouble getting people into the military," Mr. Reid told reporters when questioned about whether he could support an 18-month moratorium on enforcing a prohibition on gays in the armed forces. "And I think that we shouldn’t turn down anybody that’s willing to fight for our country, certainly based on sexual orientation."
Mr. Reid said he would go the proposal, being considered by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, one better and support a permanent repeal of the ban.
I hadn't heard that Gillibrand was proposing a moratorium, rather than a full repeal, and I suspect this may come as a surprise to her supporters as well. For all that we give Reid a lot of (well-deserved in many cases) grief here, this is a clear step in the right direction.
It boggles the mind that people still attempt to make the argument that the overall effectiveness of our military will suffer when gays have served openly in the Israeli army for years now. I think it would take a more than passing acquaintance with denial to argue that the Israeli military is not effective.