I lost a lot of respect for Colin Powell when he said that he’d disregard a direct order from his commander in chief:

No one is more responsible for defeating Clinton’s effort to gay integrate the military than Powell. He was Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time with a higher approval rating than Clinton’s and there was no one more influential on the subject at the time.

But even before then, in February of 1992 months before Clinton even got the Party’s nomination, Powell created the narrative that would lead to DADT when he told Congress that letting people of “the homosexual lifestyle” into the military “with heterosexuals who would prefer not to have somebody of the same sex find them sexually attractive” would be “prejudicial to good order and discipline.”

In January of 93, after Clinton had been elected, Powell told graduates of Annapolis that he would “understand” if they resigned their commissions upon admission of gays to the services because while race was a “benign” characteristic homosexuality “goes to one of the most fundamental aspects of human behavior”…translation: “people choose to be gay and it’s an evil choice.”

The NYTimes reported:

General Powell, in response to a question after his Naval Academy speech, said there was only one alternative to accepting a new policy. “If after those decisions are made you still find it completely unacceptable and it strikes to the heart of your moral beliefs, then I think you have to resign,” he said. Recruiters See Little Impact