(AP) WASHINGTON Defense Secretary Robert Gates declined to say Sunday whether the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff should apologize for his remark that homosexual acts were immoral or whether it was a slur on gay members of the armed forces.

"Everything has changed," Simpson said, walking me through his own remarkable evolution. "There are less homophobes in the world now. If you have someone close in your family or a dear friend who is gay, that stuff disappears," added Simpson, who has a gay cousin and many gay friends.

Having retired from the Senate in 1996 after chairing the Veterans' Affairs Committee, Simpson voted for Don't Ask in 1993 and for the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act, yet he was one of only eight Republicans who voted to outlaw anti-gay job discrimination.

He says the brutal murder of Matthew Shepard in his home state in 1998 profoundly affected him. And in 2001, he became a key player in the Republican Unity Coalition, which advocates a "big tent" party that welcomes gays and values tolerance and diversity.

[...]

To Simpson, the uproar over Pace's "immoral" comment -- even the Bush White House distanced itself from it -- shows that a gay-friendly national consensus is forming on everything short of marriage.

"Other things are critical. The recognition of every right a person should have -- association with their loves ones, civil unions and pensions," he says. "You get into (marriage), and you get into the Bible pounders. ... I say: 'Get these things done. And we'll deal with that other one later.'"

Sweetly gruff, Simpson growls that the trouncing that his party got in November shows the public is tired of the anti-gay drumbeat and wants lawmakers to focus instead on real problems.

"There are less homophobes in the world now. If you have someone close in your family or a dear friend who is gay, that stuff disappears"

While condemnation of the military's top general continues to grow over his remarks last week at gays are "immoral', Denver's Archbishop has rushed to his defense.

"Note that Pace did not say, 'homosexual persons are evil,' " Archbishop Charles Chaput writes in the Denver Catholic Register. "He said that homosexual acts are wrong. And of course he's right."

[...]

But Chaput writes that most Americans agree with Pace's assessment of homosexuality. "The only strange thing about his remarks was the theatrical wave of shock they generated from critics . . . We should respect his courage for saying it."

The Archbishop also had some harsh words for Pace's critics saying their outrage is is a symptom of how "dysfunctional" the culture has become about sexuality.

We should respect his courage for saying it.

"We need to be very precise then, about what I said wearing my stars and being very conscious of it," he added. "And that is, very simply, that we should respect those who want to serve the nation but not through the law of the land, condone activity that, in my upbringing, is counter to God's law."

Anti-war protesters sitting behind Pace jeered the four-star general's remarks with some shouting, "Bigot!" That led Committee Chairman Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., to abruptly adjourn the hearing and seal off the doors.