A FEWER GOOD MEN: THE FUROR OVER GAYS & LESBIANS IN THE MILITARY
Lifeline Theatre at the Organic Theater Greenhouse Lab
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Actually, neither honor nor morality has much to do with the U.S. military’s treatment of gays and lesbians. Not content merely to reject or eject such personnel, the armed forces have historically gone on purging binges, ferreting out sexual minorities with a zeal that would have done McCarthy or Torquemada proud. Relying on informers (jealous lovers and rejected suitors are especially useful), unfounded rumors, intimidation, and psychologically brutal interrogation tactics, the military sex police conducted 3,663 separate “Homovacs,” many involving scores of subjects, just in 1986-’90, discharging 5,951 people in the process. (The Reagan/Bush era was especially fruitful for this kind of activity.) The bill for these investigations is enormous: millions of dollars in legal and administrative expenses, not to mention the money wasted training the people eventually expelled despite often exemplary records.
When President Clinton ill-preparedly announced his intention to overturn the military’s antihomosexual policy (I’m still not sure who was dumber, Clinton or the gay advisers who underestimated the opposition), little information reached the public concerning the financial and human costs of persecuting and prosecuting gay and lesbian service personnel. Instead we got shower-room paranoia and predictions that masses of fags and dykes would turn the nation’s boot camps into San Francisco-style gay-pride parades. In fact, most homosexuals who end up in the military are young, idealistic squares from small cities and towns, unsure or even unaware of their sexual orientation until it’s too late for them to say, “Hey, I’ve changed my mind.”
FAMILY VOICES
Babaganouj Theatre at Cafe Voltaire
