President Clinton on January 29th took what he called "a dramatic step forward" in announcing that he would order the military to stop asking recruits about their sexual orientation and would direct the Defense Department to draft an executive order for him to sign that would formally lift the ban on homosexuals in the armed services. Nevertheless, his dramatic step was not enough to satisfy the homosexual activists and represents a compromise of sorts on timing.

Initially, Mr. Clinton promised to lift the ban as soon as he took office. When resistance developed, Defense Secretary Les Aspin devised a two-part process for phasing out the ban. Then, adding details to the procedure, Mr. Clinton announced an eventual six-month delay in the full implementation after having reached an agreement with Senate Armed Services Chairman Sam Nunn (D-GA).

Delaying the Showdown

As it stands, however, homosexuality will no longer be grounds for outright discharge, though the armed services can continue to conduct investigations and any homosexuals who have reached the point of discharge can be transferred to unpaid standby reserve status; should the ban stand, they then could be discharged. Nunn will hold hearings in the interim, to start in March.

Yet, whatever occurs during the hearings, Mr. Clinton has indicated that he will sign an order lifting the ban in July. As the President did note, however, an executive order can be overturned by Congress, in which case the President can veto the congressional act and attempt to have the veto sustained.

Nunn has expressed support for the current policy that excludes legalized homosexuality, and remarked that he did not think the President "intends to change his mind. I have a feeling on the subject, and I don't have any present intention of changing my mind."

The Joint Chiefs of Staff have expressed aversion to changing current policy, though political pressures are growing on Joint Chiefs Chairman General Colin Powell. The New York Times, for example, virtually accused Powell of insubordination for expressing his opinions.

Mr. Clinton has done his best to frame the matter as one of "civil rights." The issue, said the President, "is not whether there should be homosexuals in the military. Everyone concedes that there are. The issue is whether men and women, who can and have served with real distinction, should be excluded from military service solely on the basis of their status. And I believe they should not." Never mind that the acts by which practicing homosexuals are defined are illegal in many states and forbidden by the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and that the bona fide issues should be combat effectiveness and military readiness.

A New "Gay Nineties"

An initial attempt to codify and make permanent the ban on homosexuals fell well short of passage, and both sides are gearing up for long-term activity, for the decade ahead threatens to be a new and insidious version of the "Gay Nineties." A lawyer-activist from Texas was quoted by Newsweek as gloating that, "when Bill Clinton lifts the ban, he is going to push national acceptance of homosexuality. It's not just going to push people out of the closet in the military -- it's going to push people out of the closet all over the country. It's going to be OK to be a homosexual."

But "OK" will not be sufficient for "gay" activists. "We want queer quotas," ranted a spokesman for the degenerate group Queer Nation. Similarly and bluntly, a member of ACT-UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) who worked for the Clinton campaign wrote as follows to the superintendent of West Point:

Lifting the ban is not enough .... We intend to sue in Federal court as soon as the ban is lifted to insure compensatory representation in the service academies. In particular we intend to get a ruling mandating a set number of places for homosexuals in the Air Force Academy, the Naval Academy and West Point.

Meanwhile, consider an engineman in the Navy, watching his Commander-in-Chief on television making the first major pronouncement of his Presidency on behalf of a brazen and perverse special interest. "Why didn't you ask us?" the sailor growled to the Richmond Times-Dispatch. "You asked the lawyers, the politicians, the Congress," he asserted. "But we are the ones [who are] going to be affected by this. The military is going to go right down the toilet." Similar sentiments have been expressed by virtually every veteran or active-duty military person with whom we have had contact -- including a grizzled and worldly general who, presented with graphic evidence of some of the deviant acts practiced by members of the group his armed service is now supposed to welcome, did not attempt to contain his utter disgust.

Mr. Clinton undoubtedly would have preferred to lift the ban immediately, but he needed a "compromise" to quell a public outcry that recorded 1.6 million mostly negative telephone calls to Capitol Hill over an eight-day period, and outpourings to the White House that were running 100-to-one against lifting the ban.

Origins of the Pact

With so many promises broken by Bill Clinton even before he took office, why did he choose to stick by a vow to homosexuals? That pledge was made at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government in the fall of 1991, but U.S. News & World Report believes that it may have stemmed from a meeting with two dozen "gay" activists in October of that year at a West Hollywood reception. Advisers to Mr. Clinton were quoted in U.S. News as describing how Mr. Clinton was repeatedly told by homosexual acquaintances of their being called names, losing their jobs, and even being threatened with death because of their proclivities. Top homosexual campaign adviser David Mixner contends that Mr. Clinton remembers what the black civil rights struggle was like and sees parallels. "He finds discrimination of any kind abhorrent," says Mixner.

Equating racial minorities to practicing perverts is insulting to say the least. As General Powell has written to Representative Patricia Schroeder (D-CO) of the House Armed Services Committee:

Skin color is a benign, non-behavioral characteristic. Sexual orientation is perhaps the most profound of human behavior conditions. Comparison of the two is a convenient but invalid argument. I believe the privacy rights of all Americans in uniform have to be considered, especially since those rights are often infringed upon by the conditions of military service. As Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as an African-American fully conversant with history, I believe the policy we have adopted is consistent with the necessary standards of good order and discipline required in the Armed Forces.

As for being against "discrimination," pro-homosexuals prefer to ignore that the military has always discriminated, for the good of the service and country. Not allowed to enlist are single parents, political and religious extremists, substance abusers, illegal aliens, mentally retarded, transsexuals, felons, and those who are too old, too fat, too short, or who have poor vision. The military has limits -- which have been upheld by the highest court -- on important liberties enjoyed by the civilian population such as freedom of speech, and on mundane matters such as the length of hair. What Mr. Clinton and his allies are proposing are special rights for sodomites.

Mixner in fact has a larger agenda in mind. The "gay corporate consultant," who advises the White House on such matters, remarked in the New York Times for January 31, 1993: "There's no going back. This isn't about just the military. This is about homophobia in America. It's the beginning of a two-year, a three-year fight in 11 states or more and in school-board rooms around the country."

Follow the Money and Votes

Claiming to have raised more than $3 billion from homosexuals on behalf of Mr. Clinton, Mixner has spread the word that homosexuals and lesbians accounted for a staggering 15 percent of Clinton's total vote, or up to seven million ballots, figures that are undoubtedly blown way out of proportion. But exaggeration is nothing new to homosexuals who, relying on faulty research by Alfred Kinsey that utilized prisoners and sex offenders, contend that they represent 10 percent of the population. Indeed, post-election 1992 polling found that only 2.4 percent of voters who filled out questionnaires described themselves as homosexual.

In the overall population, data from recent surveys by the National Center for Health Statistics show that a more accurate figure for those who have even temporary homosexual behavior is less than two percent of the population. Still, it is entirely possible that some on the Clinton team really think that is why Mr. Clinton got elected, and that it is politically advantageous to support homosexual causes.

Health Hazards

The Joint Chiefs of Staff have indicated to the President that his proposed actions will have many negative effects, including a devastation of morale and discipline, the spoiling of recruiting efforts, posing a threat to the retention of religiously motivated troops, and increasing the jeopardy to the health of heterosexuals by the spread of AIDS.

The very nature of the homosexual lifestyle makes those who practice it prone to disease. While it is true, for instance, that homosexuals are not the only victims or carriers of AIDS, their two percent or so of the population has about two-thirds of the current cases of AIDS, some 50 percent of the cases of syphilis, and around 80 percent of the sexually transmitted diseases overall when infections known as "gay bowel syndrome" diseases are taken into consideration.

When one looks at the ages of new enlistees in the services (who include people unsure of their sexuality who might be "wavering" toward homosexuality), it becomes particularly worrisome to see that, according to the American Medical Association, homosexual youths are more than 23 times more likely to contract a sexually transmitted disease than are heterosexuals.

One cannot state too bluntly that it is the homosexual act by which homosexuals define themselves. They have no intention of giving up their practices in the military, where on-duty and off-duty time is haphazard, and one does not always go "home" as in a civilian job.

Celibacy is not often associated with homosexuals. Numerous reports, such as those found in the Annals of Internal Medicine in 1984 and in Medicine in 1985, found that homosexuals in those studies had, respectively, 1,160 and 1,422 lifetime sex partners. Promiscuity has decreased somewhat as AIDS has spread. But AIDS has killed more homosexuals in the U.S. than all Americans who died in both the Korean and Vietnam Wars -- yet unprotected anal intercourse still flourishes despite massive education of the consequences.

The New York Times ran a lengthy article on January 11th indicating that a mental health crisis is developing among homosexuals who have not come down with AIDS. The article noted that more of them are resuming unsafe practices because they do not want to live or are sure they won't survive. One man was quoted as saying, "Half my friends are dead." When fatalism or a death wish strikes someone who can transmit a killer disease, it spells trouble.

The health costs of AIDS to the military already is substantial, with NBC reporting that -- even now with a ban on homosexuality -- some 10,0000 soldiers and dependents are being treated for the fatal disease, with a cost per patient of $200,000. Apologists for homosexuals argue that all the HIV testing in the military negates the health concern. That is phony reasoning. Look at the existing spread of AIDS -- with the ban. Will lifting the ban increase or decrease the number of homosexuals and their concomitant diseases? The question answers itself.

Recruitment

Recruitment into their deviant lifestyle is the name of the game for homosexuals. A particularly revealing article by a lesbian named Donna Minkowitz brought out this point in The Advocate, a "mainstream" homosexual journal. Minkowitz described how "we need pro-gay curricula in our public schools," and how (she was here distinguishing from sexual abuse) homosexual activists really do recruit. Diminishing the notion of biological determination of sexual orientation, the author acknowledged she chose to be a lesbian, and spoke of the "morality of teaching kids that gay is OK even if it means that some will join our ranks."* Actually the biological basis for homosexuality is very shaky; there are scores of groups of former homosexuals. And well-known sex researchers Masters and Johnson reported a 71.6 percent success rate, after five years, of their clients who attempted to stop their homosexual practices.

Minkowitz claimed the best demonstration she had ever seen in her movement was outside the Republican convention in Houston: "Queer Nationals from around the country chanted, 'Ten percent is not enough! Recruit, recruit, recruit!' "Now they want into the tent.

According to a December 1992 poll conducted by sociologist Charles Moskos, 78 percent of currently serving soldiers opposed lifting the homosexual ban and "an astounding 90 percent" said "they would be 'uncomfortable' sharing a room with a homosexual." Moskos, in the Wilson Quarterly for Winter 1993, noted that what increased tolerance there is in society in general (strongest among women and whites, weakest among males and minorities) may well represent "a sign of how distant most of the citizenry has become from the realities of military service."

Should open homosexuality become legitimized in the military, the potential for misusing positions of power in the authoritarian system will grow higher. If too few homosexuals were promoted, the cry would undoubtedly grow for them to be given affirmative-action positions. Would a homosexual drill sergeant provide a good role model? Activists might demand assignment to such positions, contending it is in such jobs that rank is earned, and the military would undoubtedly feel pressured to do so lest the service be charged with prejudice. Favoritism and jealousies -- real or imagined -- would play havoc with discipline and effective unit cohesion.

Pro-homosexuals like to cite the money wasted on dismissing homosexuals from the service, pointing to the cost of their training and replacement. Of course, the military is down-sizing anyhow, and straight, decorated troops by the thousands are being separated involuntarily. With an additional $10 billion or so in cuts having just been ordered by President Clinton for the Defense Department, the financial loss of several hundred fewer homosexuals is minimal. And congressional studies have exaggerated that loss, moreover, with their methodology having been proven faulty by the Pentagon. The numbers of those discharged due to homosexuality (some 700 in 1992) represent less than one-third of one percent of the total discharged for all reasons.

Want to save money? Don't allow enlistees who practice sodomy, the primary transmitter of AIDS. Figures compiled by the Jewish War Veterans indicate that 42 percent of the soldiers in the service who tested HIV-positive had participated in homosexual sex. In the last decade, the military has spent $3 billion on AIDS-related costs. How much more will it cost with more homosexuals joining the ranks?

Anyone who has ever had to use a veterans hospital can attest that care in these facilities is often less than superb. There never seems to be enough money. With more money and treatment facilities needed for AIDS, it is reasonable to assume that health care for straights will suffer.

Segregating Sodomites

Many homosexuals scoff at the issue of privacy, saying that they are already taking showers with straights. The fact that their proclivities are kept quiet, under threat of discharge, seems to escape their reasoning. But no one would suggest that military men and women shower and sleep together, because of their sexual attractions to each other and out of respect for privacy. How different is it to be forced to shower with and sleep along side homosexuals, who are attracted to their same sex?

As Northwestern's Professor Charles Moskos observes: "Just as most men and women dislike being stripped of all privacy before the opposite sex, so most heterosexual men and women dislike being exposed to homosexuals of their own sex. The solution of creating separate living quarters would be not only impractical but an invitation to derision, abuse, and deep division within the ranks."

Yet, segregated housing for homosexuals is being examined, reported the New York Times for January 31st, though one might guess that the "gay lobby" would disapprove. Showing how impractical such folks are, one Lisa Keen, writing in the homosexual publication Washington Blade, contended that since basic training presents the greatest difficulties with group showers and whatnot, "If privacy is such a concern, perhaps the military could consider upgrading the facilities at boot camp."

When President Clinton made his first moves toward lifting the ban, homosexuals began to bring up such matters as housing benefits for their "partners." Military housing being limited, any such move would lead to competition for available facilities with married heterosexuals. Those facilities, even now, are insufficient for military couples, who as a result often live off-base. Would that mean that the Army would have to enforce provisions of "non-discriminational" housing off-base for homosexuals and their partners?

Look at the trend: At the end of 1992, it was announced that Stanford, following in the footsteps of the University of Chicago, would extend health insurance, tuition benefits, and other fringes to the lesbian and homosexual partners of faculty, staff, and students at the school. As an official group of "victims," homosexuals would surely demand as much in the military.

The homosexuals argue out of both sides of their mouths, and a sympathetic press lets them get away with it. Gary Bauer, a former domestic adviser in the Reagan Administration and president of the Family Research Council in Washington (which has done yeoman's work in studying this issue), considers the contradictions of those who would have the ban lifted: "First, they insist that sexual desire is so overpowering that it should take precedence over all other considerations, including the military's need to maintain morale, good order and discipline. On the other hand, they argue that open homosexuality in the ranks will have no effect on homosexuals' comrades, that one's sexuality is quite trivial. They can't have it both ways. Either homosexuality is too powerful to control or it is too negligible. Common sense and thousands of years of experience tell us that sexuality is powerful."

How about the assertion that homosexuals have somehow been proven not to be security risks? Or that so many homosexuals have proven brave in combat? One can expect during the hearings to see platoons of decorated homosexuals testifying. And there has actually been an attempt to turn the security argument on its head, with Representative Patricia Schroeder (D-CO) arguing that there would be improved security with legalized homosexuality, since they would no longer be subject to blackmail. By which one would surmise that we are dealing here with nothing but "monogamous" homosexuals who have nothing to hide.

One study supposedly refuting the security-risk argument was published by the Defense Personnel Security Research and Education Center in California. That report, by Drs. Theodore Sarbin and Kenneth Karois, not only relied on the dubious and discredited statistics from Alfred Kinsey's original study, but also included an attack on Judeo-Christian moral standards, which were termed "primitive taboos." Indeed, to buttress their contentions the authors on several occasions cite the works of Drs. John Money and Vern Bullough -- themselves advocates of pedophilia who have argued against laws concerning a sexual age of consent.

As for those brave homosexuals, and they do exist, their aberration is not the reason why they were awarded their decorations. As the Family Research Council puts it: "The armed forces have had people with every possible predilection, but this does not justify the predilections or the creation of special protected classes based on such predilections. For example, if a soldier who is decorated for bravery also has a drinking problem, this does not mean the military should place alcohol in a specially protected category of civil rights."

Some Questions

Georgia's Senator Sam Nunn, on the floor of the Senate, posed a number of questions on this issue, including:

• Should homosexual couples receive the same benefits as legally married couples?
• If homosexual couples are given such benefits, will they also have to be granted to unmarried heterosexual couples?
• If discrimination is prohibited, will there be a related requirement for affirmative action in recruiting, retention, and promotion to compensate for past discrimination?
• If the current policy is changed, what will be the effect on the tens of thousands of past cases, particularly in terms of claims for back pay, reinstatement, promotions, and similar forms of relief?
• If discrimination is prohibited, will there be a need for extensive sensitivity training for members of the armed forces?
• If the policy is changed, what accommodation, if any, should be made for a heterosexual who objects to rooming or sharing bathroom facilities with a homosexual?
• Should the military have a single code for conduct between members of the same sex and members of the opposite sex, or should there be a code for each type of conduct?

Who listens to the troops on this issue? Virtually every participant in -- or authority on -- combat agrees that when the shooting actually starts, men fight not for the big picture, but for their buddies next to them. It is the small troop unit, "the band of brothers" who bond together in camaraderie, that provides the impetus to win wars. Serene academics and empathic Pollyannas can wish that it were otherwise, but destroying that brotherhood shatters the glue of implicit trust that is needed for a military to work in a hostile world. There is real anger in the ranks over this, and making "gay-bashing" politically incorrect is not going to stop it.

On ABC's This Week, Senator Trent Lott (R-MS) remarked: "I would like to ungag the military so that you could have a general or an admiral here to talk about this issue, [then] see what happens over a period of months." However, the fact is that the mass media are part of the problem. With the Today show trotting out a handful of men who had performed heroically in several wars (who were then glorified on national television because of their sexual bent, not because of their deeds), one does not expect much help from the left-wing press in this matter. Like Bill Clinton, they are more familiar with touchy-feely actualities than with the grit needed in the military.

There is no question where most in the media stand. A recent apparent "gay-bashing" episode resulted in the media having the bandaged and bruised victim appear on at least two nationally televised morning shows to attract sympathy to victims of discrimination and to deliver a message slanted against any military "bigotry." Opponents of change are by implication placed in the same category as bashers. Can you imagine if a national show hosted a victim of child molestation by a homosexual -- indicating that this is typical behavior of such people -- as evidence for keeping them out of the military? The "guilt by association" tactic Would be screeched to the skies as akin to "McCarthyism."

Support for the Ban

Opposing the move to open the ranks to admitted homosexuals are the people with experience, such as the American Legion and VFW. Representatives Bob Dornan (R-CA) and Joe Barton (R-TX) have sponsored a bill to maintain the ban, and their legislation quickly picked up the support of such groups as the Non-Commissioned Officers Association, Veterans of Foreign Wars of the U.S., Department of Texas Veterans of Foreign Wars of the U.S., National Association for Uniformed Services and Society of Military Widows, Marine Corps League, Association of the United States Army, Retired Officers Association, Military Coalition, Reserve Officers Association, Air Force Association, Air Force Sergeants Association, Naval Reserve Association, Fleet Reserve Association, and Retired Enlisted Association.

Said Representative Dornan to his colleagues: "We are introducing this bill for one reason and one reason only. We are acting on behalf of the brave young men and women of our armed forces who are overwhelmingly opposed to lifting the ban. The President may ignore their views, but we won't. We will be their voice in Washington ."

Mr. Clinton should understand, commented Dornan on January 27th, "that there are those of us in Congress who will not stand by while he turns the Defense Department into a social laboratory just so he can satisfy one of the many special interest groups that supported his candidacy."

Yet, according to a homosexual activist in a USA Today cover story, "We're on the front page now and we're not going away." Jeffrey Schmalz, an editor of the New York Times who specializes in this issue, has observed: "Gay rights leaders thought the ban was the battle they could win easiest. These were wonderful, courageous, sympathetic figures. It gave such an emotional charge to the issue."

It is because many Americans have such an emotional attachment to the military that homosexuals thought it would be easier to obscure the issue and sell their perversions by using spokesmen wearing that uniform. But these spokesmen represent infiltrators in a cultural war that is all too real. It is exactly because thoughtful Americans do respect the uniform and the proud traditions it represents that stringent standards must be maintained.

Emasculation of the military is exactly the reverse of what is needed. Indeed, if a potential foreign adversary suggested that the ranks of the U.S. military be loaded with homosexuals, that they be placed in commands, that deviates be stationed on ships, placed in combat-ready units, and sprinkled around the barracks, and that all this should be honored with the seal of approval of the U.S. government, it would be considered an obvious ploy to corrupt and weaken the nation and would be hooted down in short order. Are we to institute such a destructive policy ourselves?

Mr. Hoar, THE NEW AMERICAN's Washington editor, was a drill sergeant for the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War.

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