MEDIA/PENTAGON BIGOTRY AGAINST GAYS
WHY does the US media keep asking silly questions, such as "Should Gays have a job in the military or the Boy Scouts?" Why not be more forthcoming in bigotry by asking whether all fellow Americans should have civil rights? Is it solely an American phenomenon that the civil rights granted to all citizens should be up for debate? Or is it an indication to the world at large how phony we are when we boast so loudly of our freedoms, which, in fact, do not exist for some?
The World Court has rendered a decision slamming the anti-Gay bigotry. The British and Canadians and 98% of the western world now include Gays, Women, and other minorities in the military. Curiously, our military homophobes and extremists project that citizens here are inferior and should expect lower civil rights than those of the rest of the civilized world.
The US military has had nine years in which to get integration behind us. Funny how the Brits can do it in three months, just as the Dutch and Israel and lots of other countries' military services have done it for years. I am sure that people overseas must admire the "manliness" of our troops who beat their fellow soldiers to death with a baseball bat, as was done to Barry Winchell by a fellow soldier at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Those kinds of cowards we can do without in the US military. What the Pentagon needs to do is boot out the bigots, not their minority victims.
The Pentagon claims that no Gays have served with distinction in the US military and are "incompatible" with military life. Not so! Indeed, the Continental Army was founded by two Hessian soldiers, Count von Steuben and his homosexual lover. When it needed able bodies during combat and the draft, the US military always waived its sensitivities over Gays serving in the Armed Forces. We have ALWAYS been there. When Gary Bauer and all the other rightwing homophobes were hiding behind draft deferments, Gays were being drafted for combat, even though they, like Perry Watkins (a Black resident of Seattle), declared themselves as homosexuals and, in Perry's case, stated on re-enlistment forms on four successive occasions that he was Gay. After Perry completed almost 20 years of service, the Pentagon brass booted him out, denying him his pension. Perry went to court--to the US Supreme Court--and won.
My own spouse, medical missionary Dr. Thomas A. Dooley, was exploited by the Pentagon. This "Great American Navy Doctor" was paraded around on coast-to-coast television by the military brass from 1956 until he died in 1961. What they failed to reveal was how they were holding his reputation hostage and how Tom was a victim of their vicious bigotry. They concealed the fact that they had given him a dishonorable discharge in 1956.
The US military has enshrined discrimination into its regulations. When Bill Clinton orders fairness and fair dealing with Gays, the brass in the Pentagon turn to Ron Cohen and go wink-wink, nudge-nudge, and they tell the media they are doing something positive to cure homophobia. But in fact, there are more witch-hunts, more persecutions and beatings of Gays by these "he-men" Guardians of American Morality and Purity, and it is the base and company commanders who make it all possible. After all, beating up on women and minorities is a splendid military tradition.
It only became fashionable to exclude Gays from the US military during the extremist days of the McCarthy witchp;hunts in 1955. Only when the rightwing fanatics of Senator Joseph McCarthy ran out of communists did the mentally disturbed Senator insist that Eisenhower in 1955 sign a ban on Gays in the military.
Unless you have been in the US military as a Gay man, you have no idea how corrupt and murderous it is. The admirals and generals lie with impunity, even to the President of the United States. They tell him that the reason Gays are murdered is because Gays bring the venom on themselves. What these commanders never do, though, is to say how much they helped the bigotry along themselves by circulating anti-Gay video propaganda at military bases worldwide at government expense.
The Air Force Association claims that our military is not out of control. One has only to look at all the murders of minorities in our military. One has only to look at what the military brass did to Navy Chief of the Boat, Tim McVeigh, USN, to see clearly that our US military does what it pleases. In the McVeigh case, the military stole proprietary data by fraudulent means from AOL and others--and not ONE of those officials who broke federal law was prosecuted.
The dishonesty of the homophobes is quite clear. The extremists within the Reserve Officers Association, Air Force Association, and other elements met in secret at the HQ of the ROA in Washington D.C. with subversive racists and religious extremists at a meeting that was called to plot strategies to undermine Congress and the President's efforts to integrate minorities into the armed forces. The whole sordid story is on page one of the San Francisco Examiner, dated December 1, or 2, 1992. It is on microfilm in the San Francisco Public Library. A short time later, many of these so-called "veterans organizations" told Congress and the media that ALL veterans are opposed to Gays in the military. That was a lie because the extremists within those organizations blocked any effort of mainstream veterans to have their say in the organizations' periodicals. I was one of those who successfully sued under the RICO (Racketeering) Statutes, and I will certainly be monitoring (as a former intelligence officer and investigative journalist) the extremists' current activities and filing criminal charges where warranted.
The greater threats to "unit cohesion" are the beatings, the lies, the hate-mongering, and events like the USS Iowa incident, when the right-wing extremists in the military (NIS/NCIS) sought to frame even Hetero sailors for the explosion, claiming they were Gay. Then we have General Mundy, former Commandant of the USMC, and General Boomer, who obtained a long discredited anti-Gay video and distributed it to all US military bases after copying the video with public funds.
The military has also used the gambit of "unit cohesion" in the past to exclude Blacks and women. I wonder if the same "transition" accommodations took place when Blacks were granted "equality" in our military. What did they have to do-bleach their skin and dye their hair blond? Did women have to wear slacks and tape their breasts to conceal their sexual identity so that the "he-men" troops would feel "more comfortable"?
Bigotry is bigotry, and the foot-dragging of the Pentagon brass is merely indicative of a total lack of real leadership. The "Don't Ask/Don't Tell/Don't Pursue" policy requires people to LIE about themselves. Considering the lies the Pentagon told about My Lai, Agent Orange/Dioxin, and USS Iowa and Tailhook, no wonder DA/DT/DP works so well and is so "acceptable" to these bigots and to writers who let them get away with it. And they wonder why Gay soldiers are abused and murdered!
What is needed is to scrap all the Pentagon fiddling around on this issue, and to do for our country as other countries have done: treat ALL men and women the SAME. What is wrong with EQUALITY? Is it anti-American?
--Cliff Anchor is Past Commander, American Legion Post #448; Bush appointee to Selective Service Board 10; Honorary Deputy Sheriff, Sonoma County Life Member; National Military Intelligence Officers Association Life Member; Broadcast Pioneers of America Honorary Life Member; Gay, Lesbian & Bisexual Veterans of America Advisor to the Cambridge Study (1963); human rights advocate for ALL people.
PENTAGON SURVEYFINDS ANTI-GAY HARASSMENT COMMONPLACE
The Pentagon released a military survey on the climate under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Pursue, Don't Harass" showing that anti-gay harassment is commonplace in today's military.
Of the 71,500 service members surveyed, the Department of Defense Inspector General found that:
·80% said they had heard derogatory remarks made about gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals during the past year;
·37% said they had witnessed or experienced targeted incidents of harassment, 9% of whom reported witnessing or experiencing threats and 5% of whom reported witnessing or experiencing physical assaults;
·57% reported they had not received training on "DA/DT/DP/DH."
Secretary Cohen ordered the Inspector General survey in the wake of the murder of Private First Class Barry Winchell at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, last July.
The Pentagon's survey corroborates findings by an independent watchdog group, Servicep;members Legal Defense Network (SLDN). SLDN published CONDUCT UNBECOMING, its sixth annual report on "DA/DT/DP/DH." The SLDN report cites 968 incidents of anti-gay harassment during the past year, including assaults and verbal gay-bashing, up 142% from last year's report of 400 harassment incidents. Copies of the report are available online at <www.sldn.org>.
Founded in 1993, SLDN is the sole legal aid and watchdog group assisting service members who are targeted under the military's anti-gay policy. SLDN has directly assisted more than 2,200 service members, and is dedicated to ending witch-hunts, death threats, imprisonment, lesbian-baiting, discharges and other discriminatory actions against men and women in the military harmed by "Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Pursue, Don't Harass."
--Service-members Legal Defense Network, (202) 328-FAIR (3247)