UPn 07/29 0023 Metzenbaum introduces bill to overturn military gay... Metzenbaum introduces bill to overturn military gay ban By CHARLES DOE WASHINGTON (UPI) -- Sen. Howard M. Metzenbaum, D.-Ohio, has offered legislation to overturn the Pentagon's ban on homosexuals in the U.S. armed forces. "I introduced this legislation because I think this military tradition is unfair, wrong, discriminatory and a little bit un-American, " Metzenbaum said Tuesday. "I think that all people in this country should be treated equally and not discriminated against and I think that applies as well to the military," he said. Metzenbaum said his bill was intended as a Senate counterpart to one which Rep. Patricia Schroeder, D.-Col., introduced in the House earlier this year. Metzenbaum's measure, which is less than a page long, provides that: "No member of the armed forces or person seeking to become a member of the armed forces may be discriminated against by the armed forces on the basis of sexual orientation." The measure provides that the armed services may still punish sexual misconduct, however. "Nothing," it says, "may be construed as requiring the armed forces to modify any rule or policy regarding sexual misconduct or otherwise to sanction or condone sexual misconduct, but such rules and policies may not be applied in a manner that discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation." Metzenbaum said some 17,000 men and women have been kicked out of the U.S. military over the last decade on grounds of homosexuality. He noted that opinion polls conducted as recently as 1991 found that eight out of 10 Americans believed homosexuals should not be denied an opportunity to serve in the armed forces because of their sexual orientation. The senator noted an apparent parallel between current military regulations baring homosexuals and earlier ones excluding blacks from shipboard duty. "The presence of (homosexuals)," says a current regulation, "adversely affects the ability ... to maintain discipline, good order (and) to facilitate assignment and worldwide deployment of members who frequently must live and work under close conditions affording minimal privacy." "The close and intimate conditions of life aboard ship," says a 1941 Navy memorandum, "the necessity for the highest possible degree of unity and esprit de corps, the requirement of morale, all demand that nothing be done which may adversely affect the situation. Past experience has shown irrefutably that the enlistment of Negroes (other than for mess attendants) leads to disruptive and undermining conditions." Present at Metzenbaum's press conference was Navy Lt. Tracy Thorne, an aviator who admitted his homosexual orientation on a national television broadcast last May. A Navy board of inquiry at Oceana Naval Air Station, Va., last week recommended that Thorne be separated from the service on grounds of homosexuality. At the inquiry, Thorne's lawyers, Patrick W. Lee and Luther Zeigler of the Washington firm of Crowell & Moring, had sought to show that the military ban on homosexuals was without rational foundation. But the court ruled that 79 witnesses and exibits they tried to submit were inadmissible and decided the case instead on the more narrow grounds of Thorne's public admission of homosexuality. The lawyers have said they will appeal the ruling through a Navy board of review and the civilian courts, where they will argue that Throne was denied equal protection of the laws guaranteed in the 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The equal protection provision has been widely used in the past to protect the civil rights of blacks and other minorities. "My greatest fear was that I would not be heard," Thorne said Tuesday of the Navy hearing, "Last week my greatest fear was realized. I was not heard." "The American people have heard me," he said, "this policy will come to an end." UPne 07/28 1905 Gay Eagle Scout files suit against Boy Scouts FREEHOLD, N.J. (UPI) -- An Eagle Scout will file suit Wednesday charging the Boy Scouts of America and a New Jersey chapter with discrimination for expelling him because he is gay. James Dale, 21, had earned more than 30 merit badges and was invited to become an assistant scoutmaster in Matawan when in 1990 a local newspaper ran his picture as a participant in a seminar on lesbian and gay teenagers. Soon after the article appeared, the Scouts sent Dale a letter notifying him that his membership was being revoked but gave no explanation, according to Lamda Legal Defense and Education Fund, Dale's partner in the lawsuit. The suit, to be filed in Superior Court of Monmouth County, charges that Dale's treatment violates New Jersey's civil rights law which covers gays and lesbians. "Working in and for the Scouts has been a big part of my life ever since I was eight," Dale said. "The Scouts told us not to lie about who we are and to stand up for what is right. I am an Eagle Scout and I am gay and it is not right to kick me out because of who I am." Lamda contends the Boy Scouts admitted under pressure that Dale was expelled because he is gay. The Boy Scouts could not be reached for comment. Dale's lawsuit is just the latest in a series of legal troubles for the 84-year-old organization. Similar discrimination suits have been filed in California and other states. Evan Wolfson, the Lamda attorney handling Dale's complaint, said the New Jersey law prohibits organizations like the Boy Scouts from claiming open membership and then refusing it to some.