Study Funded by Pentagon Blasts Gay Ban

The Pentagon made public Thursday a long-delayed study that recommends completely eliminating the ban on homosexuals in the military--a policy that would go far beyond President Clinton’s July 19 decision to allow gay men and lesbians to serve only with strict limitations.

The findings were presented in a RAND Corp. report that was essentially completed in early July--more than two weeks before the President announced the more restrictive policy--but was kept under wraps until now, after the issue has been decided and the furor has largely abated.

Administration officials acknowledged that only minuscule changes were made in the document since the initial draft was finished seven weeks ago, but they denied that the report was delayed for political reasons.

Kathleen deLaski, the Defense Department’s spokeswoman, said the report had not been made public earlier because “it did not exist in a hard-copy form.”

She said policy-makers had been briefed on its contents before Clinton made his decision.

But David M. Smith, a spokesman for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, charged that the report “clearly was deliberately delayed” to deprive homosexual-rights groups of ammunition for arguing that Clinton should immediately do away with all restrictions on homosexuals in the military.

“This clearly indicates that the Administration took a politically expedient way out . . . instead of doing the right thing,” Smith said.

He said the report showed that “if the President would have . . . put forth a principled position, he would have been supported.”

The policy announced by Clinton allows homosexuals to serve in the military as long as they keep their sexual orientation private, but it continues to make them subject to discharge for engaging in homosexual acts on or off base.

Clinton told Pentagon officials in January that he wanted to draft an order “ending discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in determining who may serve in the armed forces,” but he backpedaled after opposition from conservatives and military leaders.

The study released Thursday, commissioned by the Pentagon in hopes of providing the most comprehensive treatment of the subject to date, says military commanders should “consider sexual orientation, by itself, as not germane to determining who may serve in the military.”

It asserts that such a policy--which essentially would declare a person’s sexual orientation to be none of the government’s business--would be the “only one . . . consistent with” both the findings of the study and Clinton’s mandate in January to end discrimination.

The 518-page document also challenges--or dismisses as manageable problems--virtually all of the major arguments that military leaders and conservatives have made against eliminating the restrictions on homosexuals in the armed forces.

It contends that countries that allow homosexuals to serve in the military have found that gay men and lesbians generally do not openly admit their orientation, are “appropriately circumspect” in their behavior and cause few problems that are not easily resolved.

The report also states that there is no credible evidence that the presence of homosexuals hurts combat effectiveness and unit cohesion, as military commanders have argued.

Those opposed to homosexuals will react by ostracizing them as individuals, the document says.

It also dismisses as outdated the fears that the presence of known homosexuals will exacerbate problems relating to privacy in showers and foxholes, saying that a survey of military facilities shows that there is greater privacy now than 20 years ago.

Rather, the report says, the key to making a lift-the-ban policy work is to set clear guidelines on what kinds of behavior will be tolerated and to exercise leadership “from the top” to make sure that the new policy is carried out throughout the ranks.

The document recommends that policy-makers establish clear rules prohibiting harassment of all soldiers and set uniform standards of conduct that would apply the law evenly to homosexuals and heterosexuals alike.

It also suggests that the Pentagon revise the Manual of Courts-Martial, which establishes the procedure for military trials, to limit prosecution for sexual offenses only to those incidents that involve “non-consenting” adults or sexual acts with a minor.

The report says no changes are needed to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which serves as the body of laws for the military, because the language in that legislation is already non-discriminatory. But it says that the law must be applied more evenly than it has been.

There was no immediate reaction from key members of Congress, who have gone home for the late-summer recess.

Rep. Ronald V. Dellums (D-Oakland), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, and Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), his Senate counterpart, could not be reached for comment.

Officials of homosexual-rights groups said they hoped that the report would bolster an expected attempt in the House Rules Committee to strike a provision in the pending defense budget authorization bill that would write the President’s plan into law. But some analysts said they were skeptical about such an impact.

The massive report, which cost the government $1.3 million, drew on a wide variety of sources--ranging from existing sociological studies and opinion polls to researchers’ visits to countries that now allow homosexuals to serve openly in the military.

It also surveyed police and fire departments in Los Angeles, San Diego, Houston, Chicago, New York and Seattle to learn more about how the presence of homosexuals affected morale and performance.

In both cases, the document said, the results were the same: Homosexuals rarely acted any differently on the job from heterosexuals; anti-homosexual sentiment did not disappear, no matter what the policy; and lifting the ban had “no discernible effect” on the ability to keep personnel.

“Implementation is most successful where the message is unambiguous, consistently delivered and uniformly enforced,” the report said. It added that “leadership is critical in this regard.”