Evan Bayh: “I would like to call the Subcommittee to order and thank our witnesses for being with us today.”

In all likelihood there were gay Americans serving at Valley Forge, there were gay Americans at Gettysburg, there were gay Americans on Normandy Beach, there are gay Americans serving in Iraq and Afghanistan today.

There's something fundamentally wrong about that. If we can pursue our Nation's security without putting them or us as a country institutionalizing hypocrisy, I think America is stronger, we are a more just and secure country.

I believe is discriminatory. Times have changed since then and it seems to me we should respond to those changes, changes in the attitude of our people, the acceptance of gay and lesbian people in the workplace.

I had no idea until I was talking to Senator Bennet yesterday about his father's long commitment to public service.