Officer: Gay and Straight Marines Won't Share Rooms

Commandant Gen. James Conway, the top officer in the Marine Corps, told Military.com Friday that straight soldiers will not be asked to share rooms on base with openly gay soldiers if the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy is repealed.

"We want to continue [two-person rooms], but I would not ask our Marines to live with someone who is homosexual if we can possibly avoid it," Conway said. "And to me that means we have to build BEQs [bachelor enlisted quarters] and have single rooms."

Other branches of the military already house people in single rooms.

"The overwhelming number of Marines have significant concerns" about living with openly gay troops and other issues tied to repeal of the policy, added Conway, who opposes a change to the law.

"If perception is reality, we just think our Corps would not want to see a change," he said.

Conway is the second high-ranking military official this month to publicly pour cold water on the change in policy, which Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has called "the right thing to do."

Lt. Gen. Benjamin Mixon, a three star Army general, said earlier this month that troops and their families should "speak up" against the change. That prompted an admonishment from Mullen and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who said Mixon was using his rank to advocate for a political position.

The military is now engaged in a lengthy study of the impact of ending the policy and allowing gay and lesbian soldiers to serve openly. On Thursday, Gates announced that the military was instituting new rules that would make it harder to discharge gay and lesbian soldiers, effective immediately.