OBIT: Charles Moskos, architect of DADT

[MountainLaurel]

Charles C. Moskos, 74, a retired sociology professor at Northwestern University who was the author of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy for gays in the military, died May 31 of cancer at his home in Santa Monica, Calif.

Dr. Moskos, a leading sociologist who studied the U.S. military, conducted a number of surveys during a 40-year career -- in Vietnam, Panama, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq and elsewhere. He also wrote extensively on military issues, including racial integration in the armed services and women in combat, but he was best known as the man who forged the compromise that governs the conduct of gay service members.

The policy, signed into law during the early months of the Clinton administration, allows gays to serve in the military but prohibits them from engaging in homosexual activity or talking about their sexual orientation.

From the beginning, "don't ask, don't tell" drew fire from both ends of the political spectrum, but Dr. Moskos saw it as a practical accommodation to reality. In a 2003 interview with the Northwestern Chronicle, he compared it to Winston Churchill's definition of democracy: "It's the worst system possible, except for any other."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/03/AR2008060303320.html