Tomorrow, the U.S. Senate is scheduled to vote on cloture for the annual defense authorization bill. The bill includes a provision that would authorize the repeal of the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy banning open service by gay men and lesbians. Polls show that an overwhelming majority of Americans support overturning that law.

But the Washington Times -- America's foremost anti-gay daily -- isn't letting DADT disappear without a fight. Tomorrow's edition will include two op-eds rife with the sort of misinformation that conservatives have been pushing throughout the debate.

First up, this screed from Reagan administration official and nutty birther Frank Gaffney. Gaffney's hysterical rant, titled “D-day for the U.S. military,” is based on the idea that repealing DADT “could break” the armed forces. (Incidentally, I'm pretty sure that D-day was “D-day for the U.S. military.”)

As we've previously noted, these fears have been greatly exaggerated by the anti-gay right. In fact, 25 nations -- including vital U.S. allies like the United Kingdom, Israel, Canada, and Australia -- allow gay men and lesbians to serve openly in their armed forces without a problem. Fears in those countries that permitting open service would hurt retention simply never came to pass. That's why military experts like Chairman of the Joints Chiefs Mike Mullen and former chairmen Colin Powell and John Shalikashvili support repealing DADT.

The Times tastefully illustrates the column with a “Future recruiting poster” featuring Uncle Sam telling possible recruits, “I Want YOU To Be FABULOUS!” Classy.

The Times is also featuring an op-ed from retired Col. Robert Labutta suggesting that allowing gay men to serve openly would somehow lead to an outbreak of HIV in the military. There's simply no evidence to support this conclusion -- as Labutta himself noted, active-duty personnel are regularly tested for the disease, and according to a 2003 study of the impact of the decisions to allow gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the military in the United Kingdom, Israel, Canada, and Australia, “Not a single one of the 104 experts interviewed believed that the Australian, Canadian, Israeli, or British decisions to lift their gay bans ... increased the rate of HIV infection among the troops.”