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I was wrong: Ban on gays in uniform should be lifted

The time has come to remove restrictions on gay Americans serving in the armed forces.

That idea won’t sit well with a lot of people. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, is squarely on record with his personal belief that homosexual conduct is immoral.

America’s armed forces are more conservative, more straitlaced and more religious than the U.S. population at large. Many military folk regard same-sex relationships as not merely wrong but repugnant. Some military members fear gay Americans will pounce in predatory fashion on young subordinates, undermining leadership and eroding morale.

But opinion polls and anecdotal evidence tell us that most Americans just don’t care any longer about one another’s sexual behavior, as long as it’s adult, private and consensual.

We’ve always had gay people in the military. Off the top of my head, I can name two famous Air Force pilots, both war heroes, both highly decorated, who are homosexual.

Many closeted gays in the military look at those of us who have little or no exposure to their world and scratch their heads. What exactly, they wonder, are we afraid of?

Shortly after the Air Force retired the F-111F Aardvark in 1996, a gay weapons system officer (the occupant of the right-hand seat in the two-seat warplane) told me this story:

“Once, I flew a mission with a homosexual pilot,” this officer said. “This was a once-in-a-career situation. A couple of my friends, one a heterosexual and the other a homosexual, both fellow F-111F aircrew, asked me later if — due to the aircrew side-by-side cockpit configuration — anything happened during the flight. I was easily able to state honestly that nothing happened but a typical air-to-air refueling.”

June is National Gay and Lesbian Pride Month. It’s not an occasion I would usually notice. I won’t be celebrating it.

But maybe it’s the right time for the change gay Americans have awaited all their lives — for the commander in chief to issue an order ending today’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy and replacing it with an end to restrictions on gays.

Enacted after Bill Clinton became president in 1993, in part because of Clinton’s campaign pledge to end barriers to gay military service, “don’t ask” is touted by its proponents as a compromise that benefits everyone. But it retains the fundamental premise that homosexual conduct is inconsistent with military service. Under “don’t ask,” you can serve as a homosexual, but only if you keep a fundamental fact about yourself secret.

More than 30 years ago, Tech. Sgt. Leonard “Lenny” Matlovitch didn’t keep his secret. At Langley Air Force Base, Va., in 1975, Matlovitch came out of the closet with a letter confirming his homosexuality. He made the cover of Time magazine and was popular with the public, but the Air Force drummed him out anyway.

When Matlovitch died of complications from AIDS in 1988, many remembered he had volunteered for three tours in Vietnam and had been awarded the Purple Heart and Bronze Star. On his grave is this inscription: “When I was in the military, they gave me a medal for killing two men, and a discharge for loving one.”

In recent years, at least five opinion writers have argued on this page for an end to restrictions on military service by gays. I was not one of those writers. In previous columns, I wrote that homosexuality is incompatible with military service.

I was wrong.

America has changed and become more tolerant. But even before America changed, I was wrong.

If I can change, so can you: It’s time to lift a ban that was never needed and welcome qualified gay Americans who wish to serve.

The writer, an Air Force veteran, lives in Oakton, Va. He is the author of “Air Combat,” a history of fighter pilots. His e-mail address is robert.f.dorr@cox.net.