Posted on 04/08/2005 12:42:28 PM PDT by Asphalt
WASHINGTON (AP) - 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.
A recent congressional study on the impact of "don't ask, don't tell" said that hundreds of highly skilled troops, including many translators, have left the armed forces because of the rule, at a cost of nearly $200 million, mostly for recruiting and training replacements for 9,500 troops discharged between 1994 and 2003.
Gary Gates, a statistician at the University of California at Los Angeles, estimates there are about 65,000 gays and lesbians currently serving in the military, accounting for about 2.8 percent of all personnel. He estimates that at least 25 gay soldiers have been killed in Iraq.
Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, a conservative advocacy group that opposes gays serving in the military, said a better way to avoid the cost of replacing soldiers who are discharged for being gay is to make it very clear to people who enlist in the military, including Stout, that they are ineligible to serve if they are gay.
"I honor and respect his service to this country, but the fact that he's wounded really doesn't change the underlying fact. ... He is not eligible to serve," Donnelly said, adding that there are many reasons why people aren't eligible to serve. "This is just one of them."
Stout said he suspected while in high school that he was gay but didn't acknowledge it until later. "Then I noticed that it wasn't a phase or anything. This is me," said Stout, who enlisted in the Army after graduating in 2000.
"The 'don't ask, don't tell' policy, when it first came out, was a good stepping stone, but it's outlived its usefulness," he said. "We've progressed past it both as a military and as a society."
Recent media polls indicate some increased public acceptance for allowing gays to serve openly in the military, with more than six in 10 Americans supporting the idea while about half supported it a decade ago. An Annenberg poll taken last fall among members of the military showed a majority opposed to such service, though half of junior enlisted personnel said gays should be allowed to serve openly.
Are you or are you not Pro-Abortion?
Are you or are you not an athiest?
Do you or do you not support the homosexual agenda?
Do you or do you not call the soldiers of the Confederacy "traitors"?
Do you or do you not support a ban on so-called "assault" weapons?
Tell me you aren't trotting out that old ad hominem about people who take a stand against homosexual deviants must be homosexual deviants themselves? Geez, the pro-homo cheerleaders trot that one out everytime they start losing ground.
But hey, thanks for admitting that there's just something WRONG about homosexuals! Your statement would be meaningless if there weren't!
Hey, you want to parade your low moral standards around like that, be prepared for folks to acknowledge it.
LOL!
Nobody "sends" their son (or daughter). This is a volunteer military.
If things keep going the way they are, we eventually won't even be allowed to mention anything remotely heterosexual, but we'll be expected to accept as perfectly normal all homosexual activity.
"Do you or do you not call the soldiers of the Confederacy "traitors"?"
This is a new one for me. Would the answer to this question one way or another brand one a liberal?
He felt quite justified in making that statement. In his mind, my religious beliefs are abnormal and destructive and undercut the moral fiber of this country and he said as much.
The practice of Judaism, or any other religion, is a choice. Judaism is a religion. It isn't a race. I choose to practice my faith as I expect a Christian would want to practice his/ her religion. My point is simply, who am I to tell someone that, because their belief system is different to mine, their morality is somehow questionable?
I respect their right to practice their religion although I may not have the same belief system. I certainly wouldn't be arrogant enough to think of myself as "right" and them as "wrong" and I would not dare to try and convince them of the correctness of my belief system over theirs.
The fact that someone is gay makes no difference to me and to my life. How they live their life is up to them, within the law, of course. The only parallel I draw, is our condemnation of someone because they happen to be gay.
As far as insulting Jews everywhere, that's ridiculous and simply wrong. As an Orthodox Jew, I am keenly aware of what it took for my grandparents to practice their religion in 1890 Poland and Lithuania. They just wanted to be who they are.
The parallel I draw is, so what if my neighbor is gay? I expect them to behave in as dignified and tasteful a manner as I would heterosexual neighbors. No more, no less. The fact that it happens to be 2 men or 2 women makes absolutely no difference to me.
Sorry about the long post. You seem to have misunderstood my motives.
Since a vastly higher proportion of homosexuals - especially men - are HIV+, and are more likely to become HIV+ than the general population, it's only common sense to exclude them from the military. Just as they are excluded from donating blood.
And that's just one reason, there are many more.
Many straight people that are HIV positive. Should be incorporated in mandatory blood tests for everyone.
You are the one who compared excluding homosexuals from the military as equivalent to excluding Jews.
The one is a malign behavior, the other is either a religious belief and practice, or ethnicity, as there are ethnic Jews who don't practice Judaism; and under Hitler they were just as tormented.
You can't compare apples and oranges, which is what you are doing.
And since you write like a highly intelligent person, it's odd that you haven't informed yourself about the reality of the homosexual agenda, and what it portends for the principles of freedom of expression, freedom of association, and freedom of religion.
If you haven't taken the time to do so, you should. There are links all over FR that take you to the veritable mine of information about homosexuality. If you still want to imagine that homosexual behavior is equivalent to normal sexuality, or that there is no radical "gay" agenda, it must mean that you approve of it.
I don't want to be harsh, but I am tired of people making false claims about the non-existence of the radical "gay" agenda, when FR is the best place on earth to be informed about about its reality.
They already have mandatory AIDS tests in the military. I am surprised you don't know. But since homosexuals have a VASTLY higher rate of HIV infection, and are more likely to contract it at any time, as well as the fact that a person can test negative for some time even though they have contracted it and can pass it to others - there is every reason in the world for them to be excluded from the military.
It seems as though you think that the other service people should have to risk serving with and HIV+ homosexual just so the homosexuals will be happy.
You said:
No, normal men do not have any reaction to homosexuals. Men who are trying to deny their own urges are the ones most likely to lash out in anger at gays. "Methinks thou dost protest too much."
I say:
Utter, total, 100% crap and nonsense.
A talking point straight from homo-activism.
Yes...IMHO. Take a look at some of the Confederacy/Southern threads. Take a look at which posters equate the Southerners from that era to Nazis, traitors and evil men. Then take a look at some of their other posts.
Nine times out of ten they are Pro-Abortion blue-zone athiest metrosexuals who support the homosexual agenda and gun-control.
I am comatose; try me in the morning.
Well....then let me be the first.
Tell that to my dad. He marched me down to the recruiting office when I was 17.
Just kidding....he made me take the bus.
I guess it depends on what you mean by "is," doesn't it, Mr. Clinton?
You even admit to being a blue-zone metrosexual on your homepage.
And I just got my hair cut by a gay Muslim guy. Horrors!
I think allowing gays to act openly in the military would cause division and distrust in our military.This guy might not understand how straight men would feel while taking a shower next to an openly gay male.The picture of two male marines making out with each other in uniform would destroy the morale of the military.
Don't worry, I never take seriously threats of banning from someone who doesn't actually run this website.
Some people want to make FR like DU, where everyone has the same opinion. JimRob is not one of them, much to the dismay of some.
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