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Sep. 26th, 2005 03:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Scholars studying military personnel policy have found a controversial regulation halting the discharge of gay soldiers in units that are about to be mobilized. The document is significant because of longstanding Pentagon denials that the military requires gays to serve during wartime, only to fire them once peacetime returns. According to the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, gays and lesbians must be discharged whether or not the country is at war.
...Gay soldiers and legal groups have reported for years that known gays are sent into combat, and then discharged when the conflicts end. Discharge statistics corroborate a pattern of rising expulsions during peacetime and plummeting rates during military conflicts, and Pentagon statistics confirm that, as has been the case in every war since World War II, gay discharges have declined during the current conflict in the Middle East.
...[A] May, 2005 study by the Congressional Research Service says that although gay discharges do decline during wartime, the decrease is the result of "random fluctuations in the data," not an intentional Pentagon policy of retaining gays during wars ["Homosexuals and U.S. Military Policy: Current Issues," p. 12].
from RESEARCHERS LOCATE ARMY DOCUMENT ORDERING COMMANDERS NOT TO FIRE GAYS
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Date: 2005-09-26 07:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-26 08:13 pm (UTC)