Gay Man Sues Over Discharge From Navy

A former sailor contends in a lawsuit against the Department of Defense that he was discharged from the Navy because he announced on network television that he is gay.

Volker Keith Meinhold, who was a petty officer before he was discharged Aug. 12, said he filed suit Tuesday in U.S. District Court challenging the Navy’s policy on gays and lesbians and demanding reinstatement with back pay.

“In the Navy’s own words, I’ve been an exemplary sailor for 12 years,” said Meinhold, 30, who acknowledged that he is gay on ABC’s “World News Tonight” program May 19. “Purely because I said I’m gay, they discharged me.”

Meinhold’s attorney, Harry Melkonian, called the Navy’s position unconstitutional. “What we have found most offensive is they’re singling out people not on the basis of conduct, but purely on the basis of their (sexual orientation),” Melkonian said. “We feel that is illegal.”

But Department of Defense policy states that sexual orientation alone can be the basis for discharge from the military, said Lt. Col. Doug Hart, the department’s public affairs officer. A department directive says that gays and lesbians in the military “adversely affect . . . morale and discipline,” he said.

“Homosexuality is incompatible with military service,” Hart added.

Meinhold has found an unusual ally in former Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates, who said in a statement submitted in support of the lawsuit that “excluding openly homosexual persons from service solely on the basis of their sexual orientation is wrong and harmful.”

Gates, a defendant in a suit contending that gay officers were harassed in the Police Department, added: “Openly gay men and women currently serve as police officers. The (Police) Department has experienced no serious problems with morale and discipline. . . .”

Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block included a similar statement in support of Meinhold’s suit.

Meinhold, who was a specialist in anti-submarine warfare at the Moffet Field Naval Air Station in Mountain View, said he was first compelled to speak out against the Navy’s policies earlier this year when two young sailors stationed in Japan were dishonorably discharged, jailed and confined to hard labor because of their homosexuality. The case started a “witch hunt” for gays and lesbians in the Navy, he said.

The day after he appeared on TV, he was informed that the Navy would begin discharge proceedings. The policy, he said, “goes against everything that the Navy stands for--freedom, equality, justice, all those things in the Constitution.”