Posted on 04/07/2005 2:31:08 PM PDT by Crackingham
An Army sergeant who was wounded in Iraq wants a chance to remain in the military as an openly gay soldier, a desire that's bringing him into conflict with the Pentagon's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Sgt. Robert Stout, 23, says he has not encountered trouble from fellow soldiers and would like to stay if not for the policy that permits gay men and women to serve only if they keep their sexual orientation a secret.
"I know a ton of gay men that would be more than willing to stay in the Army if they could just be open," Stout said in an interview with The Associated Press. "But if we have to stay here and hide our lives all the time, it's just not worth it."
Stout, of Utica, Ohio, was awarded the Purple Heart after a grenade sent pieces of shrapnel into his arm, face and legs while he was operating a machine gun on an armored Humvee last May.
He is believed to be the first gay soldier wounded in Iraq to publicly discuss his sexuality, said Aaron Belkin, director of the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military at the University of California-Santa Barbara.
"We can't keep hiding the fact that there's gay people in the military and they aren't causing any harm," said Stout, who says he is openly gay among most of his 26-member platoon, which is part of the 9th Engineer Battalion based in Schweinfurt, Germany. Stout, who served in Iraq for more than a year as a combat engineer, said by acknowledging he is gay, he could be jailed and probably will be discharged before his scheduled release date of May 31.
"The old armchair thought that gay people destroy unit camaraderie and cohesion is just wrong," Stout said. "They said the same things when they tried to integrate African-Americans and women into the military."
Before the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, enacted in 1993 under the Clinton administration, the Pentagon had explicitly barred gays from military service. At least 24 countries, including Great Britain, Germany, France, Australia, Canada and Israel, allow gays to serve openly.
In an e-mail following the AP interview, Stout said he had been ordered not to speak to the media. "I guess they found out somehow that I was talking to the press and now they are having a fit. I will try to get everything straightened out," Stout wrote.
Martha Rudd, a spokeswoman for the Army at the Pentagon, said soldiers who are discharged under "don't ask, don't tell" typically receive honorable discharges, although the timing would be up to the individual's commanding officer. She declined to comment about Stout, saying the Army doesn't comment on specific cases.
The issue of whether gays should be allowed to openly serve in the military has received increased attention in recent months as the Army has struggled to meet its recruiting goals. Twelve gays expelled from the military sued the government in December, citing a Supreme Court ruling that declared unconstitutional state laws against homosexual sex. The Bush administration has asked a federal court to dismiss the lawsuit.
Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey has said he opposes changing the policy, although Pentagon figures show a sharp decline in the number of U.S. military members discharged for making it known they are homosexual, falling from 1,227 in 2001 to 653 last year.
Bet they would find something hard in the shower with other naked men or a foxhole with a young tender private they outrank!I'm often around young enlisted women that I outrank, but that doesn't mean I'm going to use my position to rape them. The same goes for homosexuals.
And that's why you don't let gays openly serve: elementary human dynamics.That's really the only argument for keeping homosexuals out of the military that I can respect.
I concur. As a grunt, I was aware of one soldier in my platoon whose orientation was questionable at best. Although he never made it public, there was an unspoken understanding among some of us he was most certainly gay, or at least bi-sexual. Be that as it may, he kept it largely to himself and there wasn't a single squad leader/platoon sergeant that wouldn't be proud to have him.
The old "we're just like blacks" canard. Sheesh.
Sir! May I push your stool in for you, Sir!
Well, at 150 pounds each, that would mean about 13-14. If that's out of the entire Army, that isn't that many.
Things have sure changed since 1967
Talk about a statement that sucks..
Sure. The pink pervert brigade. Their mission: infect "openly gay" enemy soldiers with AIDS, herpes, and hepatitus.
I think a lot of you don't understand what he means when he says that he wants to serve openly. I don't think he means he wants to have sex with other soldiers, dress in drag, or talk about gay orgies. It's probably more like when he's sitting with the other people he serves with and they're talking about who they miss back home he can be honest about who he misses.
This is usually what gay people mean by being open and honest. Many straight men seem to believe that they aren't "open" about they're sexuality, but when you dig a little deeper you find out that they love to talk about they're wives, girlfriends, and kids. Can you imagine trying to be fiends with someone without telling your friend that you're married or have a girlfriend?
Glad I'm not the only one!
When I was enlisted .... boy were there stories .... but mostly stories. But I did have a roommate in the Rangers, who had a bizarre 'gay' experience that he used to like to tell.
As an officer, after I had to notify a soldier that he was HIV positive, I did conduct a dreaded gay "witch hunt" in my company. After the witch hunt, in an infantry company, I actually decided to allow women in my barracks (signed-in with the CQ) until taps. "Proper Social Development" .... while my 1st Sgt hated it, it worked well.
You've obviously never been stationed/TDY in the Pacific or Europe. I'm a straight man and I can remember when military medics would inspect and treat working girls who "sodomized" servicemen. If sodomy rules were enforced I'm afraid there would be a lot of married heterosexuals caught in that net also.
He made a really poor choice of countries in which to make a first stand.
Both plans were stupid, ignorant play acting and were not the product of rational thought. Kind of like every Demwit policy before or since.
Hehehehehehe. That was good.
What does a rapist look like?
Both these policies have lowered Moral and created more problems that take away from the mission of our military.
I do understand what he is talking about. He is trying to pass his perverted way of life (or casual sexual habits) off as if it were perfectly acceptable.
WELL, ITS NOT ! !
They think they have the right to be upset and slighted over the mention of my disagreeing about their sexuality.
Well, I have the the same right to voice my disagreements over their sexuality and throw it back in their face. Its not like this heterosexual thing just started catching on a few years ago.
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