Pentagon leaders set to testify on 'don't ask, don't tell'
Hearing comes less than one week after President Obama's State of the Union speech, in which he pledged to end the policy.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Michael Mullen will testify Tuesday before the Senate Armed Services Committee on the repeal of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy.
The Pentagon leaders' much-anticipated testimony on the controversial policy governing the conduct of gays in the military, which Congress put into law in 1993, will immediately follow their hearing before the committee on the Obama administration's fiscal 2011 defense budget request.
The hearing on the repeal, scheduled to last an hour, will come less than a week after President Obama pledged during his State of the Union to work with Congress this year to scrap the law, which prohibits openly gay men and women from serving in the military, but allows those who keep their homosexuality hidden to remain.
Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., has long supported repealing the law, while Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the panel's top Republican, has said that doing so would be a mistake because it "has been well understood and predominantly supported by our military at all levels."