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Posted on Feb 17, 2007 Print this Article

CBS Misses Major Points on Gays in the Military

Note: The Department of the Army finally discharged Sgt. Darren Manzella in June, 2008.  No explanation was given for the long delay in taking action required under the 1993 law stating that homosexuals are not eligible to serve in the military, Section 654, Title 10.

 

Anyone who thinks that the issue of gays in the military is settled should take a look at the astonishing CBS “60 Minutes” segment that aired on Sunday, December 16. The sensational story, transcribed here, featured an active duty soldier, Sgt. Darren Manzella, a professed homosexual. Sgt. Manzella flabbergasted correspondent Lesley Stahl with the claim that his local commander did not discharge him from the Army despite abundant evidence of homosexual conduct. Manzella proudly displayed bare-chested photos and a video of himself hugging, nuzzling, and passionately kissing his male partner “A.J,” and said that he had given them to his commanders during an investigation.

We do not know whether Manzella’s commanders confirmed or denied the story. If it is true that Sgt. Manzella presented compromising photos and a video of himself to his local commander, and superiors retained him anyway, those commanders should be held accountable for not complying with the 1993 law stating that homosexuals are not eligible to serve in the military. As noted in a previous article posted here, this would not be the first time that a major media outlet was misled by the ongoing public relations campaign for gays in the military.

Contradictory Claims

The “60 Minutes” program suggested that the number of homosexual discharges has dropped in recent years because the military is hypocritical—retaining gays when they are needed, and dismissing them when they are needed less. The piece overlooked a more likely cause of the drop in discharges: There is a war going on, so fewer homosexuals are trying to sign up in the first place.

Instead, the program centered on a conspiracy theory that reflected negatively on the military as a whole. This was unfair, even though the Center for Military Readiness also has criticized Pentagon officials for their failure to faithfully explain and enforce the law.

The photo of Manzella and his “Army buddies,” which can be seen on the video of the CBS program, does not inspire confidence in his unit commander’s ability or willingness to enforce good order and discipline. The photo portrays Manzella in the middle of what appears to be a group of civilians, the men in beach-boy sunglasses and the women in revealing bathing suits.

We don’t know the full story, but Manzella’s charges and the photo suggest that Manzella’s unit is poorly led and headed for trouble. Many highly-publicized sexual misconduct incidents, the most prominent of which was Abu Ghraib, began with local commanders’ tolerance of undisciplined behavior. Manzella’s outfit, as portrayed by “60 Minutes,” does not represent others in which commanders do their duty to enforce good order and discipline.

Potential for Abuse

The story also seemed to suggest that homosexuals are only involved with their own voluntary partners, as Manzella says he was involved with his guy-friend “A.J.” To the contrary, the likelihood of abuse when gay superiors take advantage of subordinates was one of the factors that led to passage of the 1993 law. Elaine Donnelly’s comprehensive article published by the Duke University Journal of Gender Law & Policy, titled Constructing the Co-Ed Military,” describes several confirmed cases of abuse involving superior officers who sexually abused male subordinates.

The most egregious and recent of such cases, reported in the Washington Post on December 7, reported the court martial of an HIV-positive chaplain priest, Navy Lt. Commander John Lee, who abused the trust of midshipmen and Marines. The story appears again in the current edition of Newsweek, minus the significant information that Chaplain Lee assaulted trusting midshipmen without revealing that he is HIV positive and in violation of orders to avoid sexual activity. This is a story that news programs should be investigating further, but the swift court martial of Chaplain Lee seems to have swept it under the rug.

The “60 Minutes” program also omitted some significant factors in the debate:

• Former Marine Brian Fricke, one of the former servicemen interviewed, is an activist with the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, (SLDN), one of several groups coordinating a PR campaign for gays in the military.

• “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was never approved by Congress; it is an administrative policy imposed on the military by former President Bill Clinton. Hillary Clinton admitted in a June 5 presidential debate that it was supposed to be a “transitional policy” toward the ultimate goal of professed homosexuals in the military. Congress rejected Clinton’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” proposal because (ironically) members realized that it could lead to situations like the ones portrayed by “60 Minutes.”

• The British military was forced to accept homosexuals by order of the European Court of Human Rights, not a vote of the Parliament. It is a Navy in decline, as evidenced by the capture of a group of British sailors by the Iranians last March without resistance of any kind. The youngest sailor captured told the London Mirror that he “cried like a baby” when reunited with his “mum,” a female sailor he called “Topsy.”

• As noted by Rep. Duncan Hunter, who appeared on the “60 Minutes” program, European military are not role models for the American Navy, much less the Marines, Army, and Air Force. Note the comment of the British official interviewed by “60 Minutes, Adm. Alan West, who said this about his own Navy:

“I think American troops are very brave and I think British troops are very brave. But we do it in a little bit of probably a quieter way generally, you know? We don’t have to go ‘Huh, huh, huh, and shave our heads off and shake hands very hard. You can still kill someone without having to do that.”

• A former Air Force Captain who was identified as an SLDN activist, Cholene Espinosa, commented on the $2 million training that she received from the Air Force, which went for naught when she was discharged after revealing that she is a lesbian. Funds for that training should have been used to train to someone who was eligible to serve in the military. Espinosa, now an airline pilot, was less than honest about her eligibility to be in the military, but she received the benefit of an expensive education. No wonder she said, “Thank you very much!” The apparent waste of resources was a result of the dishonesty that “Don’t Ask. Don’t Tell” encourages.

• CBS played the usual “race” and “gender” cards, even though this is not a civil rights issue. The law recognizes the normal human desire for modesty in sexual matters, and reflects a healthy respect for the power of sexuality among men and women living in conditions of little or no privacy. The activists CBS interviewed clearly expect sensitivity training programs to change attitudes about homosexuality—and more. Our military exists to defend the country, not to engage in social experiments such as this.

• If this is such a “Will & Grace” world, as described by Brian Fricke, why was there evidence of tension, as admitted by most of the CBS interviewees? The program did not reveal any evidence of harassment, however.

At the end of the program, Lesley Stahl said that Manzella probably will be discharged. He should be for several reasons, but if his story is credible, his commander also should be disciplined and discharged as well. Officials in the Pentagon who have lowered standards should be held accountable for their poor performance in positions of responsibility. CMR also has faulted President Bush for not issuing a specific call for men to volunteer to serve, especially in the combat arms.

Sexual misconduct in the military is a serious problem affecting morale and readiness. The problem will not be helped by adding a new variety of misconduct, between persons of the same sex. This is especially so when the potential for abuse of authority is even greater. The “60 Minutes” story showed clear evidence of a problem; President Bush has the ultimate responsibility to implement the solution.

Posted on Feb 17, 2007 Print this Article