President Obama has taken plenty of heat in recent weeks for not moving fast enough to end the military’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, but numbers show he has appointed a record number of openly gay officials since his election. According to estimates by gay activists and a White House spokesman, Obama has placed more than 150 gay men and women in various posts throughout his administration. “It’s both significant and rather ordinary,” Michael Cole, spokesman for the gay rights group Human Rights Campaign, told The Associated Press. “It’s a simple affirmation of the American ideal that what matters is how you do your job and not who you are.”

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