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Page 4 — The Barb! November, 1977 f
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Washington — A major,
highly-publicized effort to
challenge the U.S. Navy’s gay
discharge policy ended in
victory October 6 when former
Radioman Third Class Robert
A. Martin, Jr, received his fully
Honorable Discharge certifi
cate, five years after the service
ousted ■ him with a General
Discharge under anti-gay
regulations.
In 1971 and ’72 Martin, then
stationed in Naples, Italy, "was
defended by American Civ 1
Liberties Union staff attorney
Thomas Culver in a nine-mon h
in-service battle Which . drew
national television cover; ge
and . involved such polit cal
notables as Senator Sam Ervin
of North Carolina and
Representatives Bella Abzug
and Edward Koch. Despile the
heavy firepower, the defense
team was unable to prevent the
Navy from issuing a less-than-
fully honorable discharge to
Martin, who had founded the
nation’s first gay student
organization at Columbia
University in 1966.
According to Mart n, who is
currently unemployed and
living ia New Yo k City, he ,
applied for an Honorable.
Discharge under President
Carter’s special Vietnam-era
discharge review program in
April. On Septeir >.»er 22, a five-
officer Navy Department
review board oted unani
mously to upgrade the
discharge.
Although the President’s
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discharges may still be
upgraded through regular
channels.
The Navy review board stated
that “the discharge action was
proper and equitable” but that,
since the acts alleged were “off
base, off duty” and with
-consenting adults’’ an
upgrading was- warranted “in
compliance with the desire of
the President that other than
fully Honorable Discharges of
the Vietnam Era be reviewed in
the spirit of mercy and
Compassion,”
“If my service to the Navy and
the country can now be
characterized as Honorable,”
Martin said, “then there is no
rationale for the services to
deny Honorably Discharges to
men and women being
discharged today for ‘homo
sexual involvement.’ Ultimately
of course, the whole discharge
policy will have to be revoked. I
hope that the Carter people in
the White House will see to it
that this is done soon, but I
suspect Anita is on their
minds.”
Martin, who grew up in a
Navy; family, said he was proud
of his time; in the service. “What
an Honorable Discharge means
to me;” he said,“is that it is the
nation’s way of saying that it is
proud of me, a gay veteran, and
by extension that it is proud of
BOOKS —
the millions, of gay vets and
current servicemen. We’ve
come a long way. And as we
gear up for the chill winds
blowing in from Miami, we can
all take heart from one more
demonstration that, sooner or
later, we can and shall
overcome.”
Of the people who were
involved in the Martin .case, one
of the first major challenges to
armed forces’ policy on
homosexuality, several of his
active supporters are now in
positions of high influence.
Koch, who intervened in the
case although Martin was not
one of his constituents, is
expected to be New York’s next
mayor-. And- Rufus Edmisten,
then staff counsel to Ervin’s
Con s t i tutio n a 1 Righ ts
, Subcommittee, - is now
Attorney-General of North
Carolina.
Martin, a native of Norfolk/
Virginia, went on to found and
head the country’s first bisexual
religious caucus," the
Committee of Friends
(Quakers) on Bisexuality, and
is a nationally-recognized
resource person on the question
of prison rape, having been the
victim of gang-rape while in
pre-trial detention after a
Quaker pray-in in Washington,
DC in 1973. Last winter he
fought and won, as defendant, a
■ major criminal case in North
Carolina, in which homosex
uality was an issue, again with
the help of the ACLU.
After his discharge he spent a
year covering the Pentagon as a
reporter, then returned to
school. For three years ending
this spring he- was a graduate
student of Indian Buddhism at
Columbia University in New
York, holding ah appointment
as a teaching assistant for the
third year.
“This was the first time I really
took on the government,”
Martin said as he looked back
on the case. “It’s five years late,
but we got what we wanted, and
it sure feels good.”
Chickenhawks—Do They 'Save Our Children?’
rOf Money pr Love, hv Rglsin
Lloyd, Ballantine Books, New
York — 1976.
I thought For Money or Love
would be the typical type of
hysterical crap you usually find
on the bookstands. I was
interested particularly as how a
public mind, incensed by Anita
Bryant, might respond to Such a
book.
I was wrong. The book is
honest. The author gives a
humane portrait of the
“chickenhawks,” pointing out
that in many cases, they are the
only care and attention these
boys ever receive.
Such cases are rare. Lloyd is
appalled by what he calls the
“mutilation of a child’s spirit”
and for a large part, his book
reads like a chart of casualties.
The book stunned me, made me
want to do something.
A few days later, of course, I
still do nothing, It is s« easy to
doze off, to live iiie with
blinders on.
Mr.-Lloyd’s book then begins
to sound like a man shouting at
a wall of bricks. Does anyone
even care about these kids.
They are exploited by
homophobes to create
sensational arguments against
gay civil rights. To most gay
people they are something of a
skeleton in the closet, sexually
exciting and embarrassing.
I believe the sexual love of men
for men contains within it a
concern that goes beyond sex.
Almost spirituallyV we are
p«y§ ana inert
iroqbles. Some Christian gay
people operate “outreach”
programs - for hustlers, gay
community services are surely
open (where they exist at all.)
Several gay activists are
intended by Lloyd. One,
Morris Kight, exasperatedly '
exclaims, ‘‘They (the police)
don’t want ourJielp.” .
A paradox: The myth of the
“candyman” may be the biggest
block to our advancement, yet
our feelings, including the
erotic, may well qualify, us to
quoting the opposition — “save
our. children.”.
Are Ex-Gays Really Cured?
Holier Than Thou Hocus
Pocus and Homosexuality, by
Dr. Ralph Blair.
Usually I am not concerned
with Biblical defenses .of
homosexuality — and this little
booklet escaped my attention
The stoiy of a young,
English footman
who served the
Lady Booby
but loved the
little Fanny.
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for quite a while. I come from
years of Family Devotions and
thousands of choruses of “Just
As I Am.” I have a festering
guilt complex which makes it
necessary to avoid the subject of
Christianity. Period.
Dr. Blair’s booklet covers the
“ex-gay” movement, These ex
gays have been making public
appearances to denounce gay
civil rights and to paint pictures
of painless deliverance from all
homosexual impulses and acts.
They woo the disturbed and
troubled with their claims t-o
complete freedom. Th,e
hypocrisy is most apparent in
the ones who try to make the
men who come to them for
salvation. But what is
contained in all such claims is a
type of “double-think that
boggles the mind.
Ex-gays admit privately, and
some even publicly, to strong
temptations and sexual feelings
for attractive men. But they are
no longer gay, you see, it is only
habit from all the years that
they were gay. Some even have
erotic dreams. But they are
cured.
Yawn. Yes, we’ve all heard
that one before.