Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1999 17:27:12 -1000 From: Mia H H Lam Subject: Number of Homosexuals Discharged Doubles (fwd) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1999 16:20:20 -1000 From: AMY D. HUANG Subject: Number of Homosexuals Discharged Doubles From: LUCY::AHUANG "AMY D. HUANG" 23-JAN-1999 15:08:08.78 To: AHUANG CC: Subj: The actual article... Date: 23-JAN-1999 13:03 Expires: 6-FEB-1999 00:00 From: SALLIE::AHUANG Description: The actual article... By STEVEN LEE MYERS By STEVEN LEE MYERS WASHINGTON -- Five years after the Clinton administration adopted its "don't ask, don't tell" policy for gay men and lesbians in the military, the armed forces discharged more people as homosexuals in 1998 than in any year since 1987. Figures released by the Defense Department late Friday show that the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps discharged 1,145 gay men and lesbians in the last fiscal year, a 13 percent increase over the year before and nearly double the number in 1993, the last year before the "don't ask, don't tell" policy took effect. The policy, which put Clinton at odds with the military early in his presidency, was intended to allow gay men and lesbians to serve in the military for the first time, but the number of discharges for homosexuality has steadily increased since then. The reasons for the rise were sharply contested Friday. In releasing the figures late on a Friday afternoon, a time often used to disclose unfavorable news, the Pentagon said the increases reflected a tendency by members of the armed services to volunteer information about their sexual orientation as a way to get out of the military. But advocates for gay rights argued that the steady increase reflected a failure of the policy. The discharges, they say, showed that base and unit commanders were continuing to investigate the sexual orientation of members of the armed forces in their ranks despite the "don't ask" provisions of the new policy. "Military leaders have turned a blind eye to the continued asking, pursuit and harassment of gays, lesbians and bisexuals serving our country," said C . Dixon Osborne, one of the executive directors of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, an organization of lawyers who advise gay men and lesbians in the military. Rep. Martin Meehan, D-Mass., who has long advocated letting gay men and lesbians serve in the military, said the increases "should set off alarm bells as to whether 'don't ask, don't tell' is working properly." Last Tuesday, Meehan and 23 other representatives wrote a letter to Defense Secretary William Cohen taking issue with the Defense Department's claims that declarations of homosexuality are voluntary. Even so, the letter said, the department's statement did not "explain why there has been a consistent increase in gay-related discharges in recent years." In the last year, the Air Force had the largest increase: 414 discharges, compared with 309 in 1997. The Army also had a large increase, with 310 discharges, compared with 197 the year before. The Navy's numbers fell to 345, from 413 in 1997, and the Marine Corps had a slight drop, to 76 from 78. Rudy de Leon, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, issued a statement saying 87 percent of the discharges involved voluntary statements from members of the armed services. He also noted that the 1,145 gay discharges represented less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the nearly 1 .4 million people now in uniform. Air Force officials said a large number of the declarations of homosexuality -- 293 of the 414 -- took place at the service's basic training camp at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio. Most of those, the officials said, involved recruits who also requested immediate discharge during the six weeks of basic training. Lt. Col. Barbara Claypoll, a spokeswoman at the Air Force's Education and Training Command, said one reason for the increase was that before the current policy took effect, the service did not count gay men and lesbians who were dismissed while at Lackland as discharges. A survey ordered last year by Gen. Lloyd Newton, commander of the Education and Training Command, found that in the vast majority of cases the enlistees declared their sexual preferences to get a quick discharge, Claypoll said. She added that many appeared to be doing so falsely, as an excuse for getting out of the service. The Pentagon's spokesman, Kenneth Bacon, offered this explanation: "Throughout society there are more people declaring their sexual orientation -- coming out of the closet, shall we say -- and there's no reason the military should be any different." xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx The most solid comfort one can fall back upon is the thought that the business of one's life is to help in some small way to reduce the sum of ignorance, degradation and misery on the face of this beautiful earth - George Eliot Present: Davis Hall, 106 Central St., Wellesley, MA, 02481 (781)283-4242 Permanent: 324 Elm Pl., Leonia, NJ 07605 (201)944-3742 ********** To post, send mail to aplb@queernet.org. To unsubscribe, send mail to majordomo@queernet.org; put a line saying unsubscribe aplb in the body. (This may fail if your address has changed since you signed up; if so, or for other assistance, contact aplb-approval@queernet.org.)