Smooth Sailing At Annapolis

The Baltimore Sun reports that since the repeal of DADT, life has gotten a lot easier for gay midshipmen at the Naval Academy.

Eight months after the repeal, midshipmen both gay and straight describe a quiet but significant transformation at the Naval Academy. Gay midshipmen are seeking recognition for a student club. Last month, for the first time, faculty members and staff attended an off-campus dinner that had been organized secretly every year by and for gay midshipmen. And Atwill and his boyfriend, classmate Nick Bonsall, planned to go together Saturday to the Ring Dance, a formal ball held each spring for third-year midshipmen. “It’s been really great, actually,” Bonsall, 20, of Middletown, Del., said of life at the academy since repeal. “Everyone has been really accepting of us.”

(Tipped by JMG reader Tim)