Gays in military not an issue for many nations

Skepticism lingers in Australia
Back in 1992, Anita Van Der Meer was threatened with discharge from the Australian navy for being a lesbian. She denied the charge to save her job — and later that year the military's ban on gays and lesbians was lifted.

This spring, Van Der Meer marched proudly with more than 100 other service members in Sydney's annual Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade under an Australian Defense Force banner. Even a general joined the march.

Now a chief petty officer, Van Der Meer was a junior sailor in 1992 when someone reported she was engaged in a same-sex relationship.

"It was very traumatic for me, but I still had the cooperation of my supervisors and my peers," said Van Der Meer, 41. "In the end, I had more support than I expected."

Chief Petty Officer Stuart O'Brien, who joined the navy 19 years ago, said being openly gay has not been an issue, even when working alongside U.S. military personnel in Baghdad in 2006.

"They valued the work that I did and that's all that it comes down to at the end of the day," O'Brien said. "Sexuality has nothing to do with anything any more within the services."

The lifting of the ban on gays was preceded by years of heated debate, yet the change itself was relatively uneventful aside from a few unexpected coming-outs of high-profile commanders.

"Everyone said, 'Good heavens, that's a bit of a surprise' and after five minutes the conversation reverted back to football," said Neil James of the Australian Defense Association, a security think tank. "After a while, it was met with a collective yawn."

Among opponents of the change at the time was Australia's main veterans group, the Returned and Services League, which has now withdrawn its objections.

The league's president, retired Maj. Gen. Bill Crews, said concerns about lowered morale and HIV transmission on the battlefield had proved ill-founded.

"I was there in the early days of it. ... I thought there'd be a continuing problem because of prejudice that exists in parts of the community," Crews said. "I don't see any evidence now that homosexuals are in any way discriminated against. ... A homosexual can be just as effective a soldier as a heterosexual."

Some skepticism lingers, however.

Brig. Jim Wallace, who commanded an elite Special Air Service mechanized brigade until retiring in 2000, argues that gays and women should be barred from combat roles.

"Do you want an army which is already likely to be outnumbered wherever it fights to be fighting at its most effective or its least effective?" Wallace asks. "If you want to sacrifice fighting effectiveness for political correctness, then all right, go ahead."

He referred to the traditional 10-soldier units commonly deployed in Australian combat forces.

"Now if you introduce into that 10 men a love or lust relationship, you immediately damage the phenomenon of mateship," he said. "There is some discrimination that has to be done to maintain the effectiveness of society or the effectiveness of fighting units."

Lifting of ban has had ‘no damaging effects’ in Britain
British policymakers had been wrestling for years with whether to scrap a long-standing ban on gays in the military — but the pivotal decision was made abroad, by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France.

The court ruled in 1999 that Britain had violated the rights of four former service members who were dismissed from the military for being gay and lesbian.

King's College professor Christopher Dandeker said there had been significant opposition to the change among military officers. There were predictions — not borne out — that unit cohesion would suffer and that large numbers of personnel would leave the military if gays could serve.

Once the ban was lifted, Dandeker said, the opposition dwindled, and the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair embraced the chance to be seen as a beacon of tolerance.

Lord Alan West, former head of the Royal Navy and now Britain's terrorism minister, served before and after the ban was lifted.

"It's much better where we are now," West said in an interview at the House of Lords. "For countries that don't do that — I don't believe it's got anything to do with how efficient or capable their forces will be. It's to do with other prejudices, I'm afraid."

As for Britain's trans-Atlantic ally: "I think the Americans really need to make the move," West said.

Peter Tatchell, a London-based gay-rights activist often critical of the government, praises the military's handling of the change.

"Since the ban has been lifted, there hasn't been a word of complaint from senior military staff," he said. "They've said that having gay and lesbian people in the services has had no damaging effect at all."

Mandy McBain joined the Royal Navy at age 19, in 1986, at the most junior rank possible. Now a lieutenant commander, she remembers what it was like to serve when being a lesbian had to be a secret.

"It's exhausting," she said. "It's quite incredible to look back and see how much time and energy I spent leading a double life."

In one past assignment, she processed the paperwork of comrades being dismissed because of their sexuality. "That," she said quietly, "I found very difficult."

Military expert Amyas Godfrey of the Royal United Services Institute, a London think tank, was serving with the British Army in Northern Ireland when the policy changed.

"I remember our commanding officer at the time called the entire battalion together and said, 'This is how it is going to be now. We are not going to discriminate. We are not going to bully. If someone in your group says that he is gay, you treat them as normal,'" Godfrey recalled.

"And that, really, was the implementation of it. For all the years I served after that, it was never an issue."

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