POINT MUGU : Navy to Look Into Gay-Bias Claims

U. S. Navy investigators have agreed to look into allegations that a gay civilian employee was discriminated against by co-workers at Point Mugu Naval Air Weapons Station for criticizing the military’s ban on homosexuals, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union said.

An investigator from the Navy Office of Special Counsel has been assigned to look into gay-bias allegations filed by Thomas A. Swann, who works for the Navy’s missile-testing program, said his attorney, Alan Friel of the ACLU.

Point Mugu spokesman Alan Albers said Thursday that the Navy would not comment on the investigation, but that Swann’s transfer was appropriate.

On March 11, Swann, 34, a former Marine, filed a bias complaint with the Office of Special Counsel alleging that because he criticized the military ban on homosexuals, the Navy transferred him back to work in an office with a co-worker who had harassed him last year for being gay.

The two had earlier been separated by the Navy after Swann complained of harassment.

A Navy investigator is expected to question Swann and his supervisors within 90 days to help the Office of Special Counsel determine whether it should launch a full investigation into Swann’s allegations, Friel said.

In addition to stationing him 25 feet away from his harasser, Swann said, his superiors are giving him very little work to merit his annual $40,000 salary.

Swann said he is pushing the case to win homosexuals the right to work for the military.

“If we can’t be free and I can’t have my constitutional rights, I’m going to fight for them,” he said. “That’s why I was in the Marine Corps. This is what America’s supposed to be about--the First Amendment.”