Gay activists
arrested at Marine recruiting office

Police took three people into custody after they refused to leave a U.S. Marine Corps recruiting office in Shreveport, La., on Tuesday during a protest of the military's ban on openly gay recruits. The Virginia-based gay rights organization Soulforce said it was staging such protests in 30 cities around the nation in the coming weeks and months. Organizers have dubbed the campaign Right to Serve.

The three taken into custody were among nine who tried to enlist at the Marine recruiting station on Mansfield Road. Soulforce condemns the Pentagon's "don't ask, don't tell" policy as blatantly discriminatory and says it hurts recruiting at a time when recruits are needed.

Charles Moskos, a military sociologist at Northwestern University who helped craft the policy, defended it in a recent interview with the Associated Press. Moskos said allowing openly gay service members would hurt the morale of the military rank-and-file and make many recruits uncomfortable. "The gay advocates say it will cause enlistment to go up, but I think you'd find it dropping rather than rising," Moskos argued. (AP)