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Washington, D.C. — A Pentagon survey about gays and lesbians serving in the armed forces was criticized as biased Friday by gay veterans organizations, which predicted that it would produce skewed results on the potential impact of lifting the ban on homosexuals serving openly in the military.

Most of the criticism focused on a handful of questions in the lengthy survey related to whether unit readiness would suffer and the extent of concerns among service members about sharing housing, bath facilities and attending social functions with gay and lesbian personnel.

The online questionnaire was sent this week to 400,000 randomly selected military personnel by a Pentagon group studying the impact of repealing the current prohibition on openly gay service members, a policy known as “don’t ask, don’t tell.” The effort was ordered by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates after President Barack Obama announced his support for repealing the current ban this year.

Among the questions posed in the survey: “If Don’t Ask, Don’t tell is repealed and you are working with a Service member in your immediate unit who has said he or she is gay or lesbian, how would that affect your own ability to fulfill your mission during combat?” Respondents have a range of choices from “very positively” to “very negatively,” as well as “no effect” or “don’t know.”

Critics said the wording of some questions made it likely the responses would be overwhelmingly negative and that the results would be used to justify discriminatory measures against homosexual service members, even if the current ban is repealed.

“If you really want to assess whether repeal of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ will harm military readiness, there are established ways to study that question, and this is not the way,” said Aaron Belkin, director of the Palm Center, a research organization at the University of California, Santa Barbara, that made a portion of the survey public. “There are some things you don’t poll the troops about.”

But Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell defended the survey in a hastily called news conference Friday afternoon. The questionnaire, he said, was a “very credible and professional survey” that had been designed by a polling firm working with members of the Pentagon group charged with studying a repeal of the ban.

The questions concerning attitudes about bath facilities, housing and the effect on unit effectiveness were necessary, he told reporters, because many service members had raised those issues in private forums and one-on-one discussions conducted by Pentagon officials.

The survey results would allow the Pentagon to understand the full extent of the concerns within the armed forces before proceeding with a repeal of the ban, he said, so it could take steps to mitigate any potentially negative effects from repealing the ban, he said. Morrell cited the possibility that “adjustments” to housing and bathing facilities might be considered once the ban is overturned.

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