The Army has discharged a decorated medic who was deployed to Iraq despite acknowledging he was gay.

Darren Manzella, 30, said he revealed his sexual orientation to his military supervisor in August 2006, and was redeployed to Iraq anyway. He has since spoken out publicly several times about being a gay service member.

Manzella was discharged this month for "homosexual admission." His commander's discharge recommendation included a transcript of an interview he gave to television show "60 Minutes" in December 2007, in which Manzella said he is gay.

He did the same in a number of other interviews and even at a Washington news conference. The military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy prohibits active-duty service members from openly acknowledging they are gay or lesbian.

The discharge was effective June 10, a spokesman for the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network said in a news release. Manzella was traveling and not immediately available for comment.

The Army press office declined comment by phone Friday, but requested an e-mail query, which was submitted and awaiting response.

Manzella first told a military supervisor about his sexual orientation in August 2006 while he was stationed at Fort Hood, Texas, and working in division headquarters. Three weeks after Manzella made the revelation, his battalion commander told him an investigation had been closed without finding "proof of homosexuality."

A month later, Manzella was redeployed to Iraq. Manzella and his supporters have said his case demonstrates how the military has been arbitrarily enforcing its "don't ask, don't tell" policy during the war.

Manzella enlisted in the Army in 2002. In Iraq, he provided medical care to other soldiers and accompanied his unit on patrols. He was awarded the Combat Medical Badge.

via 365gay

Labels: DADT, military

Via NY Times:

Marking the 14th anniversary of legislation that allowed gay men and lesbians to serve in the military but only if they kept their orientation secret, 28 retired generals and admirals plan to release a letter on Friday urging Congress to repeal the law.

"We respectfully urge Congress to repeal the 'don't ask, don't tell' policy," the letter says. "Those of us signing this letter have dedicated our lives to defending the rights of our citizens to believe whatever they wish."

The retired officers offer data showing that 65,000 gay men and lesbians now serve in the American armed forces and that there are more than one million gay veterans.

"They have served our nation honorably," the letter states.

The letter's release comes as rallies are scheduled on the Mall by groups calling for a change in the law, which is known as "don't ask, don't tell" because it bars the military from investigating soldiers' sexual orientation if they keep it to themselves.

Although the signers of the letter are high-ranking, none are of the stature of Gen. John M. Shalikashvili, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when the policy was adopted and who now argues for its repeal. General Shalikashvili refocused attention on the issue earlier this year when he wrote that conversations with military personnel had prompted him to change his position.

The current generation of Americans entering the armed services have proved to him "that gays and lesbians can be accepted by their peers," the general wrote in an Op-Ed article published in The New York Times on Jan. 2.

"I now believe that if gay men and lesbians served openly in the United States military, they would not undermine the efficacy of the armed forces," General Shalikashvili wrote. "Our military has been stretched thin by our deployments in the Middle East, and we must welcome the service of any American who is willing and able to do the job."

Few issues have split the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates this year as clearly as whether to repeal "don't ask, don't tell."

Read the entire article here.

Labels: DADT, military

And are very out of step with the majority of America when it comes to Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Need proof? Watch this back-assward attempts at answering questions regarding DADT. Fucking disgusting and so disrespectful towards a man who served our country for 42 years in the armed forces. Via the YouTube debates.

Labels: 2008 Presidential Election, DADT, dickheads, republican

Labels: DADT, video

A Berkeley watchdog organization that tracks military spending said it uncovered a strange U.S. military proposal to create a hormone bomb that could purportedly turn enemy soldiers into homosexuals and make them more interested in sex than fighting.

Pentagon officials on Friday confirmed that military leaders had considered, and then subsquently rejected, building the so-called "Gay Bomb."

Via CBS 5:
Edward Hammond, of Berkeley's Sunshine Project, had used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain a copy of the proposal from the Air Force's Wright Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio.

As part of a military effort to develop non-lethal weapons, the proposal suggested, "One distasteful but completely non-lethal example would be strong aphrodisiacs, especially if the chemical also caused homosexual behavior."

The documents show the Air Force lab asked for $7.5 million to develop such a chemical weapon.

"The Ohio Air Force lab proposed that a bomb be developed that contained a chemical that would cause enemy soliders to become gay, and to have their units break down because all their soldiers became irresistably attractive to one another," Hammond said after reviwing the documents.

"The notion was that a chemical that would probably be pleasant in the human body in low quantities could be identified, and by virtue of either breathing or having their skin exposed to this chemical, the notion was that soliders would become gay," explained Hammond.

The Pentagon told CBS 5 that the proposal was made by the Air Force in 1994.

"The Department of Defense is committed to identifying, researching and developing non-lethal weapons that will support our men and women in uniform," said a DOD spokesperson, who indicated that the "gay bomb" idea was quickly dismissed.

However, Hammond said the government records he obtained suggest the military gave the plan much stronger consideration than it has acknowledged.

"The truth of the matter is it would have never come to my attention if it was dismissed at the time it was proposed," he said. "In fact, the Pentagon has used it repeatedly and subsequently in an effort to promote non-lethal weapons, and in fact they submitted it to the highest scientific review body in the country for them to consider."

Military officials insisted Friday to CBS 5 that they are not currently working on any such idea and that the past plan was abandoned.

Gay community leaders in California said Friday that they found the notion of a "gay bomb" both offensive and almost laughable at the same time.

"Throughout history we have had so many brave men and women who are gay and lesbian serving the military with distinction," said Geoff Kors of Equality California. "So, it's just offensive that they think by turning people gay that the other military would be incapable of doing their job. And its absurd because there's so much medical data that shows that sexual orientation is immutable and cannot be changed."

Labels: DADT, federal

Well at least that is what the Under Secretary of Defense is claiming, or not claiming--then claiming.

From Slate.com

For years, the Pentagon has defended its ban on gays and lesbians by repeating the mantra that "homosexuality is incompatible with military service." But as evidence has mounted that gays serve openly in dozens of countries including the United States without harming unit cohesion, the military has grown increasingly incoherent in defending the "don't ask, don't tell" gay exclusion.

For some years, the military has been trying to pass the buck back to Congress, suggesting the gay ban isn't the fault of the Pentagon, which merely "implements a federal law" from 1993, as obligated. But in recent weeks, the military has unveiled several new defenses of the gay ban. Each of them is bizarre, and as a group they make no sense at all.

Yesterday, Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Chicago Tribune (registration required) that open gays should not serve in the military because homosexuality is "immoral." Pace said, "I believe homosexual acts between two individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts." He said he did not think the military was "well served by a policy that says it is OK to be immoral in any way" and compared homosexual conduct to adultery. Today, Pace retreated from his comments, saying, "I should have focused more on my support of the policy and less on my personal moral views."

That would have been a good idea.

Even so, Pace's frank acknowledgement that his opposition to gay service is moral signals a departure from the carefully constructed "effectiveness" argument that the military used for more than a decade. In 1993, when military leaders developed a strategy to prevent President Clinton from lifting the gay ban, some members met with leaders of the religious right, who urged them to oppose gay service on moral grounds. But Colin Powell and other senior officials decided it would be more effective to resist the change on the grounds of military effectiveness. The "unit cohesion" argument was born of this conversation, which argues that straight soldiers dislike gays so much that unit cohesion would suffer if known gays were allowed to serve.

Pace was also contradicting the Pentagon's own brand new justification for leaving the ban in place. According to the military, even talking about gays in the military will undermine the war on terror. In a February letter to Sen. Ron Wyden, Undersecretary of Defense David Chu said that a "national debate" on lifting the gay ban, "with the accompanying divisiveness and turbulence across our country, will compound the burden of the war." As a result of this conclusion, he "question[s] the wisdom of advocating a change."

This is an astonishing claim for Chu to make—that not only must gays conceal their homosexuality to protect unit cohesion, but the entire country must avoid discussing homosexuality or else it will undermine the war effort. By this reasoning, we should ban discussion of whether to increase troops in Iraq and prohibit an inquiry into conditions at Walter Reed.

Read the rest over at Slate.com.

Labels: anti gay, bush, DADT, discrimination, military

Early next year, Rep. Marty Meehan (D, Mass.) announced that he will reintroduce legislation to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell".

Rep. Meehan said that 112 Members of Congress from both parties have signed on to co-sponsor the bill, called the Military Readiness Enhancement Act. It is also important to note that, as we reported earlier, 3 out of 4 soldiers have no problems serving side-by-side with gay or lesbian soldiers.

"I will also be asking for the first Congressional hearings on gays in the military since 1993. I know that when my colleagues see and understand the evidence against "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," they will be motivated to join me in the fight for repeal," Meehan said in a statement released by the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network.

"We cannot afford to keep losing the talent and contribution of patriotic, gay Americans who want to serve. Our military success depends on having the best and brightest Americans in our armed forces. The best and brightest includes lesbian and gay Americans, too."

Since the ban on gays serving openly was implemented a decade ago more than 11,000 men and women have been dismissed under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" according to the Government Accountability Office.

The number of gays and lesbians who have attempted to enlist and rejected because they said they were gay is not known.

A study conducted last year for the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network concluded that the U.S. military could attract as many as 41,000 new recruits if gays and lesbians in the military were able to be open about their sexual orientation.

We'll follow this one as it would be one of the largest positive changes at the federal level in a long, long time.

Labels: DADT, Massachusetts, military

Direct from the soldiers on the ground... According to an October Zogby poll of 545 troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan:

Nearly three in four troops (73%) say they are personally comfortable in the presence of gays and lesbians.

Of the 20% who said they are uncomfortable around gays and lesbians, only 5% are "very" uncomfortable, while 15% are "somewhat" uncomfortable.

Only two percent of troops said knowing that gays are not allowed to serve openly was an important reason in their decision to join the military.

Of those who know a gay or lesbian peer, 27% said it has a negative impact on the morale of their unit.

Nearly three out of four troops said in the Zogby poll that they usually or almost always take showers privately - only 8% say they usually or almost always take showers in group stalls.

In combat units, 21% said they know for certain that someone in their unit is gay or lesbian.

In combat support units (25%) and combat service support units (22%) know and work alongside gays and lesbians.

One in five troops (20%) in other units said they know for certain someone is gay or lesbian in their unit.

Nearly half (45%) say there are people in their unit they believe to be gay or lesbian, but they don't know for sure.

Slightly more than half (52%) say they have received training on the prevention of anti-gay harassment in the past three years;

However, 40% say they have not received this type of training, which is mandated by Defense Department policy.

The full report from Zogby is here (pdf).

Hat tip to Pam's House Blend.

Labels: DADT, military, poll