Army Reconsidering Ban on Gays, Group Says

A U.S. Army document that may reflect a broad rethinking of military personnel policy has proposed reversing a policy barring homosexuals from military service, according to a leading gay-rights group.

An internal Army memorandum released to the group by the Pentagon proposes a policy change under which the service would accept “persons whose sexual orientations deviate from the customary” so long as they “exercise appropriate restraint and discretion with regard to their sexual behavior.”

The Army document was released to the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund in connection with a case involving an avowed homosexual who was expelled from the U.S. Naval Academy on the basis of his sexual orientation.

An Army spokeswoman confirmed that the undated memorandum, titled “Proposed HQDA (Headquarters, Department of the Army) Letter on Homosexuality and Military Service,” is genuine. But Capt. Barbara Goodno described the memo as one that was “not staffed” by the Army. That indicates the document has not received approval for it to be sent to Defense Secretary Dick Cheney as a formal Army proposal.

Current Army policy reflects existing Defense Department policy that excludes homosexuals from military service. Until there is a change in policy at that level, the Army’s regulation will remain the same, Goodno said.

But according to Sandra J. Lowe of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Army memo may be part of a larger move within the Defense Department to open the military services to gays.

Lowe’s group is seeking the release of a newer, high-level Defense Department memorandum, dated last Friday that the Pentagon has described as explaining a “proposed modification” of its policy barring gays from military service and giving “legal opinion with respect thereto.”

Arguing that the policy is still in the “deliberative process,” the Pentagon has refused to release that memo, which came from Defense Department general counsel Terry O’Donnell and was addressed to Christopher Jehn, assistant secretary of defense for force management and personnel.

In private, Defense Department sources have acknowledged that the Pentagon in recent years has tried to review the armed forces’ policy banning homosexuals in the military service.

In 1988, the Pentagon rejected a draft report by its Personnel Security Research and Education Center that recommended reconsidering the ban on homosexuals. Last year, an internal Navy policy review of its anti-gay policy urged some relaxation of the prohibition, but the move was rejected.