Discharges Up After ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’

In the three years since the Clinton administration adopted its controversial “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, the number of military service personnel discharged for homosexual activity has increased. But the figures are still well below those of a decade ago, a gay rights organization said Wednesday.

Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen said the report’s findings failed to make a case for a policy change, but three dozen members of Congress urged him to take further steps to ensure that gays in the military are not harassed.

The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network said many commanders routinely violate the intent of President Clinton’s policy by actively trying to identify and discharge gays and lesbians, including those who choose to keep their sexual orientation secret.

The group’s annual report said 850 personnel were discharged for homosexual activities in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, slightly higher than the 722 in the previous year and sharply above the 597 recorded in the 1994 fiscal year--during which the policy was in effect for seven months.

Last year’s discharges fell disproportionately hard on women, who accounted for 29% of the dismissals while representing only 13% of the active force. The report speculated that women were often accused of being lesbians in retaliation for rebuffing the sexual advances of male superiors.

Cohen dismissed the figures as a normal statistical fluctuation. “It may go up this time, it may go down the next,” he said. “I think we have to look in the long term” to determine if the policy is working. The increase in discharges is being reviewed by defense officials, “but it’s not of such a gravity that it would warrant any change of policy,” Cohen said.

But 36 members of the House demanded that Cohen take immediate action.

“In your new position as secretary of Defense, you have the authority to bring the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t pursue’ policy back to its original intent to protect gays and lesbians from harassment and abuse,” the lawmakers told Cohen in a letter drafted by Rep. Lynn C. Woolsey (D-Petaluma). “It is crucial that you make enforcement of the policy, including strong discipline for those who violate it, a top priority during your tenure.”

The policy was adopted as a compromise between Clinton’s original plan to repeal the ban on homosexuals in the service and the determined defense of the prohibition by the military and its supporters on Capitol Hill. The approach requires the discharge of personnel who admit their homosexuality, but it prohibits commanders from inquiring about the sexual orientation of their troops.

The report by the Servicemembers group contained Pentagon statistics starting with the 1980 fiscal year. The numbers show that discharges for homosexual activity totaled 1,998 in 1982 but that they declined steadily until they reached the low point of 597 during the year that the new policy took effect.

The organization offered no theory for the steady decline from 1982 to 1994. But it said the increases recorded in the last two years were evidence that the policy “is evolving into a Machiavellian system where the end justifies the means. In 1996, the armed forces repeatedly excused violations of current law including witch hunts, seizure of personal diaries and threatening service members with prison unless they accused others as gay--all in an effort to target and ferret out gay men and women who serve our country.”

The report called on the Pentagon to make sure that all commanders know “the letter and intent” of the policy and to punish those who violate it.

It said the Pentagon should “discharge expeditiously” individuals who say they are gay. But it said the military should not “launch costly, wide-ranging investigations to establish bases for criminal charges or reduced benefits” against those who declare their homosexuality.