MELBOURNE, Australia — Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Sunday he hoped the outgoing Congress would approve legislation ending the military's ban on gays but was unsure of the prospects for success.
His comments came a day after the new commandant of the U.S. Marines Corps said that now is the wrong time to overturn "don't ask, don't tell" with U.S. troops at war in Afghanistan. President Barack Obama has pledged to do away with the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, adopted in 1993, but big gains by Republicans in the Nov. 2 elections have raised doubts about ending the ban once the new Congress takes power in January.
Republicans, many of whom oppose repeal, will take control of the House of Representatives and won seats in the Senate.
Asked about the prospects for repeal during the so-called lame duck session, Gates said: "I would like to see the repeal of 'don't ask, don't tell' but I'm not sure what the prospects for that are. And we'll just have to see."
Gates made the comments to reporters aboard a U.S. military aircraft shortly before landing in Australia for annual bilateral talks.
For the past 17 years, homosexuals have been allowed to serve in the U.S. military as long as they hide their sexual orientation. They are expelled if it becomes known.
Polls have said most Americans support lifting the ban. The House has voted to change the law but unless the Senate takes it up in the final weeks of the "lame-duck" legislative session, it will effectively die.
Obama is under pressure to act after a series of court decisions created confusion for the Pentagon.
A federal appeals court on Monday ordered the ban to remain in place while the Obama administration challenges a lower-court opinion declaring the policy unconstitutional.
Obama has said he was awaiting a Pentagon review, due in December, on the impact of lifting the ban on the military and would study it carefully.
Many Republicans, including Sen. John McCain, who lost to Obama in the 2008 presidential election, have said they oppose voting on a repeal of the policy before the Pentagon review is done.
On Saturday, Gen. James Amos, the Marines' new commandant, said the policy's repeal may have unique consequences for his service, which is exempt from a Defense Department rule for troops to have private living quarters except at basic training or officer candidate schools. The Marines puts two people in each room to promote a sense of unity.
"There's risk involved; I'm trying to determine how to measure that risk," Gen. James Amos said. "This is not a social thing. This is combat effectiveness. That's what the country pays its Marines to do."
"There is nothing more intimate than young men and young women — and when you talk of infantry, we're talking our young men — laying out, sleeping alongside of one another and sharing death, fear and loss of brothers," he said. "I don't what the effect of that will be on cohesion. I mean, that's what we're looking at. It's unit cohesion, it's combat effectiveness."
Amos, who began his assignment last month, said he was reviewing preliminary findings of an internal Pentagon survey of the policy that was sent out to about 400,000 troops and another 150,000 family members. He will make recommendations to Defense Secretary Robert Gates later this month.
Amos declined to comment on the survey results, though portions have been leaked to reporters. Most troops and their families think the policy could be done away with, according to officials familiar with its findings who spoke on condition of anonymity because the results had not been released.
Amos, 63, spoke with reporters during a Southern California visit to mark the Marines' 235th birthday.
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