Nation IN BRIEF : NEW YORK : Experts Say Gays Don’t Hurt Military

Testimony in the first civilian court trial of a challenge to the Defense Department’s year-old “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy began in U.S. District Court with two experts testifying that gays don’t hinder military performance. “You don’t have to like someone to work with them,” said Robert MacCoun, a former RAND Corp. researcher who studied the issue for the Defense Department. Dr. Robert M. Rankin, a Veterans Administration psychiatrist and former Navy doctor, said that as sailors, gays and lesbians were “as good as those who were heterosexual--no better, no worse.”