Gays In Military

We called them pansies. They were, we said, limp-wristed weaklings. They swished and minced and pranced.So why are we now so afraid of them?Why can't Marines defend themselves from such people in their own showers? Why is the Air Force scared, the Army frightened and the Navy petrified?What strange power do gay soldiers possess that makes the knees of straight soldiers turn to jelly at the mere thought of sharing a barracks with them?Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., who opposes lifting the ban on gays in the military, said the other day that we civilians simply don't understand.

There is a saying that "when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. " That seems to sum up the Republican approach to all issues. The latest example is the GOP-controlled House, which just passed a budget bill that bans the use of military facilities for gay marriages. Gay discrimination in the military has ended. Gay marriage is legal is many states. Yet the Republicans have used a religious approach to everything and now have applied it the budget. There is medical condition in which fluid builds up in the wrist, causing swelling that looks like a small knot on the skin.

The man on the radio needs jumper cables attached to his tongue. He's so agitated about this gays-in-the-military business that the words can't find their way out of his mouth fast enough. Nouns, verbs, all manner of modifiers are tumbling madly, breathlessly, a random spill out of a verbal revolving door, until finally, exasperatedly, comes this:"Homosexual literature," he cries. "They'll be bringing homosexual literature into United States Army barracks."Minutes later, I reach the office of a friend of mine, who is gay and more open about it than the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff would find acceptable if he ever wished to abandon civilian life.

Tuesday marked the end of the Pentagon's nearly two-decade policy barring openly gay, lesbian, or bisexual people from military service. The death of "Don't ask, don't tell" is a big win for the LGBT rights community, but it may be an even bigger win for the nation's military and the communities that play host to major military installations. That's because the end of this discriminatory policy may go a long way toward dispelling the notion that there is a sharp divide between the culture of the military and that of society at large.

WASHINGTON -- A federal judge in Brooklyn, N.Y., expressed doubt yesterday that the military would be harmed by having homosexuals in its ranks and temporarily stopped the Clinton administration from discharging six gays now in uniform.Judge Eugene H. Nickerson became the first federal judge to act on the administration's new policy regarding gays, which took effect Feb. 28, and on the 1993 law that Congress passed to support that policy.This marked the sixth time in the past year that a federal court has stopped the military from discharging service members because they are gay.The five previous rulings involving restrictions on gays have been replaced by the administration.

For 200 years, Americans have sent their sons to war with these macho parting words: "It'll make a man out of you." Perry Watkins was inducted into the U.S. Army in 1968, during the Vietnam mess. It made a woman out of him.As Randy Shilts tells it in his timely and instructive book, "Conduct Unbecoming," Mr. Watkins proclaimed from Day One that he was homosexual -- not so he could avoid the draft, but because it was true. The Army broke its own rules and took him anyway. There was a war on, and the brass didn't much care what a soldier did off-duty.

It was soon after the president put to rest yesterday any hope that Lt. Zoe Dunning might remain in the Navy Reserve that the telephone call came.The naval officer, whom she didn't even know, was calling to say he was sorry for the way the military has treated the 29-year-old Naval Academy graduate and lesbian.It was the lone bright spot in a day of disappointment for the lieutenant.Like several other service members whose futures in the military rested on the policy announced yesterday, Lieutenant Dunning said Pentagon directive would do little to change the lives of homosexual service members.

WASHINGTON -- Setting the stage for a likely Supreme Court test on gays in the military, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday that gay men or lesbians may be discharged for saying they are homosexual but only when that shows a "concrete, fixed desire" to engage in homosexual acts.Merely saying "I am gay" cannot be the basis for a discharge from the military, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco stressed.Ruling on one of the most celebrated legal fights over gays in the military, the Circuit Court told the Navy that it may not oust Petty Officer V. Keith Meinhold solely because he had said on a television news program in 1992: "Yes, I am in fact gay."

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton's policy on gays in the military may ultimately be upheld by the courts, but for now it is in deep legal trouble, and uncertainty over its future seems likely to last for months.Just as the president appeared this week to be putting the issue behind him by getting his new policy through Congress, the gays policy was under attack from two federal judges -- one here and the other in California.Justice Department lawyers have been going to court after court for weeks to defend the Pentagon against a variety of constitutional challenges by gay soldiers or sailors.

WASHINGTON -- Ending a weeklong political furor, President Clinton directed Defense Secretary Les Aspin yesterday to have a draft executive order ending the ban on homosexuals in the military on his Oval Office desk by July 15.He also ordered an immediate end to questioning military recruits about their sexual orientation but did not go as far as he initially wanted in ending legal proceedings against gays based solely on their homosexuality.In a compromise with Sen. Sam Nunn, the powerful chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Mr. Clinton said final discharges on the single ground of sexual status will be suspended until the executive order is issued.

Bruce Fleming makes some fair points in raising concerns that the military must think hard about how to enforce a new policy that lets open gays serve in the military ("Military's history will repeat," April 20). But Mr. Fleming stumbles in several of his points. Mr. Fleming states that allowing openly gay service is not comparable to the integration of "soldiers of color" because "gender matters more fundamentally than skin color." Yet this is not how Americans experienced race generations ago. Indeed, while men and women have always lived together in the same household, many whites found the very idea of being in the same house with an African American totally unacceptable.

Carlisle Barracks, Pa. - Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Thursday that the Obama administration would move cautiously in shifting policies on gays serving openly in the military, but he signaled that military service members should prepare for possible changes. In his most extensive remarks to date about the ban on gays who serve openly, Gates said he and other military leaders have "begun a dialogue" with President Barack Obama about the issue. Obama promised during last year's presidential campaign to end the ban on gays, and the White House has said recently that it is reviewing the issue.

WASHINGTON - Lawmakers called yesterday for an end to the Pentagon's ban on gays in the military, citing findings in a government report that the prohibition hurts recruiting and retention even as the war in Iraq strains the military's ability to maintain its troop strength. A Government Accountability Office study, released Wednesday, found that since 1993, the Department of Defense had spent at least $191 million to recruit and train replacements for almost 10,000 service members discharged under the ban - including more than 300 with critical language skills.

WASHINGTON -- A federal appeals court yesterday ordered a federal judge to hold a wide-ranging trial to test the authority of the military to discharge those who engage in homosexual acts.The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City said that if such authority survived constitutional challenge, the military would be able to oust homosexuals merely for saying they are gay or lesbian.The appeals court said a judge must face the broader question first: whether the military discriminates against gays and lesbians by discharging them for engaging in sex, even though heterosexual service members do not face discharge for doing so.As the appeals court set the stage for a new test of the Clinton administration's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, another constitutional challenge to that policy arrived at the Supreme Court in an appeal by a former Navy lieutenant.

WASHINGTON -- In a nearly total refusal to second-guess the military, Congress and the White House, a federal appeals court yesterday upheld the constitutionality of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy that bars known homosexuals from the armed forces.The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., the highest court so far to rule on the emotional dispute, said it felt its power to review the policy was strictly limited because military issues essentially are for Congress and the White House handle.

WASHINGTON -- The Clinton administration succeeded yesterday in getting a liberal federal judge to remove himself from an appeals court panel that will rule on the constitutionality of the government's policy on gays in the military.U.S. Circuit Judge Guido Calabresi, named by President Clinton last year to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City, disqualified himself from the case after the administration filed a subtly worded protest about his participation.The administration's letter did not directly urge Judge Calabresi to step aside, but it amounted to a clearly implied suggestion that his impartiality might be questioned if he did not.The appeals court then postponed a hearing that had been set for yesterday on the issue, saying a new judge would be added to the three-judge panel.

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton plans to direct Defense Secretary Les Aspin to prepare an executive order that would lift the ban on homosexuals in the military sometime in the next few months, Clinton aides said yesterday.In the meantime, the military will be directed less formally to stop asking recruits about their sexual orientation and discharging people from the armed services when they are found to be homosexuals. These are the two points that would be the main practical effects once an executive order is in place.

WASHINGTON -- In a nearly total refusal to second-guess the military, Congress and the White House, a federal appeals court yesterday upheld the constitutionality of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy that bars known homosexuals from the armed forces.The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., the highest court so far to rule on the emotional dispute, said it felt its power to review the policy was strictly limited because military issues essentially are for Congress and the White House handle.

WASHINGTON -- Setting the stage for a likely Supreme Court test on gays in the military, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday that gay men or lesbians may be discharged for saying they are homosexual but only when that shows a "concrete, fixed desire" to engage in homosexual acts.Merely saying "I am gay" cannot be the basis for a discharge from the military, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco stressed.Ruling on one of the most celebrated legal fights over gays in the military, the Circuit Court told the Navy that it may not oust Petty Officer V. Keith Meinhold solely because he had said on a television news program in 1992: "Yes, I am in fact gay."

WASHINGTON -- A federal judge in Brooklyn, N.Y., expressed doubt yesterday that the military would be harmed by having homosexuals in its ranks and temporarily stopped the Clinton administration from discharging six gays now in uniform.Judge Eugene H. Nickerson became the first federal judge to act on the administration's new policy regarding gays, which took effect Feb. 28, and on the 1993 law that Congress passed to support that policy.This marked the sixth time in the past year that a federal court has stopped the military from discharging service members because they are gay.The five previous rulings involving restrictions on gays have been replaced by the administration.