MR. RUSSERT: Is it a time to do away with "don't ask, don't tell" and allow openly gay people to serve in the military? GEN. POWELL: I think the, the country has changed in its attitudes quite a bit. "Don't ask, don't tell" was an appropriate response to the situation back in 1993. And the country certainly has changed. I don't know that it has changed so much that this would be the right thing to do now. My, my, my successor, General Shalikashvili has written a letter about this. MR. RUSSERT: Yes. GEN. POWELL: He thinks it has changed sufficiently. But he ends his letter by saying, "We're in a war right now, and let's not do this right now." My own judgment is that gays and lesbians should be allowed to have maximum access to all aspects of society. In the State Department, we had a very open policy, we had gay ambassadors. I swore in gay ambassadors with their partners present. But the military is different. It is unique. It exists for one purpose and that's to apply state violence. And in the intimate confines of military life, in barracks life, where we tell you who you're going to live with, where we tell you who you're going to sleep with, we have to have a different set of rules. I will not second-guess the commanders who are serving now, just as I didn't want to be second-guessed 12 or 13 years ago. But I think the country is changing. We may eventually reach that point. I'm not sure. MR. RUSSERT: Is it inevitable? GEN. POWELL: I don't know if it's inevitable, but I think it's certainly moving in that direction. I just don't--I'm not convinced we have reached that point yet, and I will let the military commanders and the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Congress make the judgment. Remember, it is the Congress who put this into law. It was a policy. And that's all I wanted it to be was a policy change, but it was Congress in 1993 that made it a matter of law. And so there are some proposed pieces of legislation up there. I don't know if all of the candidates the other night who were saying it ought to be overturned have co-signed that or introduced law. But it's a matter of law now, not a matter of military policy.

http://www.ashbrook.org/publicat/oped/owens/00/military.html"Skin color is a benign, nonbehavioral characteristic. Sexual orientation is perhaps the most profound of human behavioral characteristics. Comparison of the two is a convenient but invalid argument," he wrote. "As chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as an African-American fully conversant with history, I believe the policy we have adopted is consistent with the necessary standards of order and discipline required in the armed forces," said Gen. Powell, whose second term expires in October, overlapping Mr. Clinton's first months in office. Even a former Clinton primary rival, Sen. Bob Kerrey, Nebraska Democrat, said that while he supports the president-elect's plan to lift the ban on homosexuals in the military, such a move will be difficult. Some restrictions may be needed, the Vietnam War Medal of Honor recipient said. Mr. Kerrey added that neither homosexuals nor women should be allowed in combat.