History of Homosexuals in the Military: Part 1

At midnight September 20, 2011 the previous President of the United States Barack Obama repealed the (DADT) “Don’t ask Don’t tell” law which was instituted by Bill Clinton during the Clinton Administration prohibiting gays and bisexuals from disclosing any information about their personal lives while serving in the US military on February 28, 1994. This repeal gave gays the right to serve freely and openly in the United States military.

Just like during the Equal Right’s movement of the 1950’s to late 1960’s for Black Americans, the strides the LGBTQ community have made to live openly and freely has not come without a price.

Since the Revolutionary War, any man living open could be discharged from the US military and since around World War II policies on the gay lifestyle began to enter US policy.
Psychopathology became the new way to describe gay men and it was one of the determining factors, other than if you were a woman, to be turned away from serving in the US military.

In 1942 if a man or a woman, before the war, was caught serving in the military, he/she was court martialed, imprisoned and dishonorably discharged. The blue discharge, becoming standard practice because of difficulties with bureaucracy was then instituted for gays 'found out’ and in 1944 if you were a gay man or a lesbian and you were caught serving while gay or lesbian you were admitted to a hospital to be psycho analyzed by a psychiatrist and discharged under Regulation 615-360, section 8.

And just when they thought there were enough thorns in their sides in 1947 while the Blue Discharge was discontinued, the military began a new way of dealing with their problem by separating the “general” (straight) from the “undesirables” (gays and lesbians).

If you were caught serving being gay you were discharged and if you were found to have sexual relations while serving in any capacity you were dishonorably discharged. So much for the better…..right?

In 1957 though it was admitted that homosexuals posed no security threat in a report known as the Crittenden Report it did however say that there should be strict guidelines for homosexuals regarding the military because and I quote, ‘Homosexuality is wrong, is it evil, and it is to be branded as such”.

With all the homosexual community has been through thus far in history it’s no wonder they are a very strong & formidable force in American Society.

Please stay on @marcoharley and thank you all for being kind enough to read this blog so far and please do stop by for Part 2 of my History of Homosexuals in the military.