By Stewart N. Thorpe of Citizen Press Revolution
A Pentagon document, "Defense Department Instruction", classifies homosexuality as a mental disorder. This view was left behind more than 30 years ago in 1973 by the American Psychiatric Association. The document in question outlines retirement and discharge policies for service members for reasons of disabilities and in a section lists homosexuality with conditions such as mental retardation and personality disorders nearby.
For those who don't know, the Pentagon has a "don't ask, don't tell" policy regarding homosexuality.
What this means is that the policy prohibits the military from inquiring about the sex lives of its service members. At the same time, if a service member openly acknowledges having an alternative sexuality (i.e. gay or bisexual), they are required to be discharged.
In effect, if you want to keep your job, stay or go back into the closet. It is okay if you are "different", but keep it to yourself and pretend you are someone else. We don't what to be "uncomfortable" with the knowledge of being near you. Your alternate sexuality makes you unfit to fight in the armed services of the United States of America. We cannot tolerate being around you. We don't want to know that someone like you is around us. You don't deserve to be yourself among us. You must either pretend or be discharged. And we don't want to ask because we prefer ignorance over developing tolerance and acceptance of others.
And so, by this logic of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, altogether, since Sept. 30, there has already been 726 service members in the military discharged on the ground of homosexuality alone.
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Is there a way to access the "document in question"?
--Mike