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NEWS
New Strategies for Ending
Military Discrimination Against Gays
Renewing the draft would force Congress to debate controversial issues such
as student deferrments, drafting women, and allowing homosexuals to serve
by John Zeh
Norfolk, VA-Resumption of the draft and
how the Pentagon handles returning gay and
lesbian Gulf warriors may provide the
impetus needed to change anti-gay military
policy, a key aide to openly-gay Rep. Gerry
Studds (D-Mass) believes.
"Congress follows the military," Kate
Dyer told a recent forum here. Integration of
blacks into the armed forces preceded the
Civil Rights Act and recruitment of women
occurred before debate on the Equal Rights
Amendment. "If the military integrates gays,
a gay civil rights bill may follow."
Dyer urged citizens to contact their
Congressional representatives in support of
national legislation to prohibit discrimination
against homosexuals in jobs and housing
(See page 6).
The Persian Gulf war, Dyer noted, high
lighted the Department of Defense's unjust
policy of saying it barred service by open
homosexuals while Department of Defense
(DoD) unit commanders allowed some of
them to join the conflict.
The Pentagon has promised that out-of-
the-closet gay men and lesbians will be dis
charged regardless of their desire to stay in
the services. But at least 14 openly gay or
lesbian servicemembers were dispatched to
the Gulf.
Dyer and other gay rights advocates have
denounced the DoD's duplicity. "When
(President George) Bush says They are
America's finest,' we want him to know that
they are gay and lesbian," Dyer was quoted
in Our Own, Virginia's statewide monthly
newspaper.
Other avenues of possible reform—the
courts, Bush, or Congress—-aren't likely to
act, she charged.
The U.S. Supreme Court, with only one
exception, has not protected homosexuals'
military service. The tribunal did require the
Army to re-enlist Staff Sergeant Perry
Watkins, after it had allowed him to rejoin
despite his openness. The Bowers v
Hardwick decision that homosexuality is not
a fundamental right precludes help from the
high court, Dyer said.
Bush is not likely to follow the lead of
President Harry Tiruman, who in 1948
signed blacks into the service. And Congress
is bound to heed homophobic conservatives
lobbying against gays, she said. Constituent
lobbying, she stressed, provides homosexuals
one key counter-measure.
To renew the Selective Service conscrip
tion of soldiers, Dyer expects Congress
would have to debate controversial issues
such as student deferments, drafting women,
and allowing homosexuals to serve before
voting.
Anti-gay arguments in hearings covered
live by C-SPAN cable TV, with scrutiny by
HRCF’s "Speak Out" subscribers and other
constituents, would raise serious issues and
create powerful incentives for DoD to agree
to stop discrimination, activists at the
Hampton Road Price Festival here said.
Heterosexuals can avoid the draft by
saying they have a desire or intent to com
mit sodomy. Meanwhile, patriotic and talent
ed recruits who express gay pride and want to
serve the country must be excluded, Dyer
noted. And parents of heteros may wonder
why their sons and daughters must risk death
while homosexuals are excluded.
Dyer helped Studds and others gain
release of DoD's study of homosexuals' suit
ability for military, conducted by the
Personnel Security Research and Education
Center (PERSEC).
"This scholarly, dispassionate Pentagon
report finds clearly, unequivocally, that a per
son's sexuality has nothing to do with his or
her suitability to serve in the U.S. Armed
Forces," Studds' chief legislative assistant
told this reporter.
Alyson Publications published the full
report, with Dyer's analysis, as Gays in
Uniform.
"It finds that homosexuality has about as
much to do with job performance as right- or
left-handedness. They were humiliated by
their own findings, so they buried this report
within the Pentagon," she said. "We pushed,
pressured, and refused to give up, until we
got (it).
"And lo and behold, a second study
arrived anonymously, with an even more
powerful conclusion-(gays) are equally, if
not better suited, to serve!"
The PERSEC study was mere grist for
D.C.'s rumor mill until Lambda Legal
Defense and Education Fund required DoD
to outline its case against former Midshipman
Joe Steffan, whose civil suit against the U.S.
Naval Academy and DoD revealed its exis
tence through what is appropriately called
"discovery." DoD attorneys had given up the
cover page of the PERSEC report, prompting
Studds and others to force full release.
Lambda attorneys think the Pentagon
has hushed up other studies showing homo
sexuals’ suitability for service. Their March
6 motion for full disclosure of secret
Pentagon papers is what prompted the judge
hearing Steffan's suit, Oliver Gasch, to make
remarks about "homos" which Lambda and
others deemed inappropriate.
The military separates 1000-2000 mem
bers each year as a result of charges of homo
sexuality, the Military Freedom Project
charges. A total of 14,311 members were
booted between 1973-83, according to the
U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO). The
cash cost of training and then discharging
Former Midshipman Joe Steffan.
The judge of his civil suit against the
U.S. Naval Academy is under attack
for referring to gays as "homos.”
them was $180 million.
One option to preclude discrimination
against gays is to lobby Congress to disallow
DoD funds for separating homosexuals, a
path being pursued by the Human Rights
Campaign Fund, the nation's largest lesbian,
gay, and AIDS lobby.
Men and women suspected of homosexu
ality are no longer canned under old, ambigu
ous offenses such as "misconduct" or "unsuit
ability." New rules provide the increased
possibility that "homosexuality" will be
added to one’s official discharge record, and
an "other-than-honorable discharge" will be
administered, the project cautions.
Discharge for homosexuality can result
from mere desire or intent to committing a
homosexual act, as well as coitus, defined by
DoD directive 1332.14 as "bodily contact,
actively undertaken or passively permitted,
between members of the same sex, for the
purpose of satisfying sexual desires."
DoD should "wake up and smell the cof
fee," Dyer insisted. "This shameful policy of
institutionalized prejudice has no rational
basis, and no place in society."
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Southern Voice/March 28, 1991