# How seriously does the US military take 'homosexual misconduct'? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 14, 2008, 9:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-seriously-does-the-us-military-take-homosexual-misconduct/472691 "2008-11-14T09:40:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Henrichek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5daacb/32.png) [@Henrichek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Henrichek)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2008, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-seriously-does-the-us-military-take-homosexual-misconduct/472691/21 "2008-11-14T15:30:26Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > Even my most relaxed and liberal friends have planned to be married roughly around the time that they get married. Some of them have missed by a little, but not intentionally. Sounds like a reasonable plan, but how do some of them miss? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Mississippienne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d2c977/32.png) [@Mississippienne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mississippienne)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2008, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-seriously-does-the-us-military-take-homosexual-misconduct/472691/22 "2008-11-14T15:56:33Z")
> [@Mr.Moto](#): > > The actions against a servicemember who fathers or bears a child out of wedlock aren’t borne out of some old-fashioned sense of propriety - they are there because these matters have a massive impact on that member’s mission readiness - especially with regard to their ability to deploy overseas. **Mr. Moto** is right. All y’all who are expressing shock at the US military’s ‘arcane’ policies needs to listen to him. The US military is not a normal job. You may be called on to go to a foreign country and serve however many months, and your child cannot go with you. If there is no one to care for or support that child other than you, you don’t need to be in the military in the first place. A single parent cannot enlist in the military. If you divorce, or your spouse dies, etc. you will not neccesarily be seperated from the military so long as you have a family care plan, designating a non-military person who will agree to care for your child long or short term. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2008, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-seriously-does-the-us-military-take-homosexual-misconduct/472691/23 "2008-11-14T16:04:26Z")
> [@Mississippienne](#): > > **Mr. Moto** is right. All y’all who are expressing shock at the US military’s ‘arcane’ policies needs to listen to him. The US military is not a normal job. You may be called on to go to a foreign country and serve however many months, and your child cannot go with you. If there is no one to care for or support that child other than you, you don’t need to be in the military in the first place. > > A single parent cannot enlist in the military. If you divorce, or your spouse dies, etc. you will not neccesarily be seperated from the military so long as you have a family care plan, designating a non-military person who will agree to care for your child long or short term. Lack of a family care plan and lack of a spouse are two entirely different things. In what way is it worse to have a family care plan without a spouse than to have one while married? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2008, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-seriously-does-the-us-military-take-homosexual-misconduct/472691/24 "2008-11-14T16:23:32Z")
Because if you’re married you’re assumed to have this covered. I’m not saying the military will automatically discipline you if you fall into this situation - but your chain of command will monitor it closely (assuming they’re doing their job) and if you do not have your obligations set just right, they will make sure that it doesn’t adversely affect their operational readiness. Why this is a mystery to some people here I can’t comprehend. Frankly, the fact that you’re married doesn’t entirely let you off the hook in this area - if you have a child or a spouse with exceptional medical needs, it affects your deployment and duty station options and might affect your advancement to a degree. None of this should be a mystery either. ---
**Author:** ![Mississippienne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d2c977/32.png) [@Mississippienne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mississippienne)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2008, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-seriously-does-the-us-military-take-homosexual-misconduct/472691/25 "2008-11-14T16:36:56Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > Lack of a family care plan and lack of a spouse are two entirely different things. In what way is it worse to have a family care plan without a spouse than to have one while married? Like **Mr. Moto** said, if you have a spouse, that’s one more person who’s there to care for the child in the event of your deployment or death. Serving in the US military is not a right. They are not beholden to allow you to join because you’re a single parent who wants to serve. The military has no interest in signing you up if you’re a liability, and a single parent is considered a liability. ---
**Author:** ![diggleblop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ac91a4/32.png) [@diggleblop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/diggleblop)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2008, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-seriously-does-the-us-military-take-homosexual-misconduct/472691/26 "2008-11-14T16:38:19Z")
I listen to OutQ in the morning every morning (it’s a gay station on Sirius) and a few months ago they had an expose’ regarding being gay in the military. Well, one lady called in and told her story and it was pretty heart wrenching to say the least. She said that she had gone all the way through the military academy, coming out an officer and then she put in another 5 or 6 years of service. She said that she wanted to become a military investigator and she had to go through a thorough background investigation beforehand, which is to be expected for anyone. She, being gay, was worried about them finding out about her “secret” and thought that there was no way they would ever find out. Well, they went back all the way to her high school guidance counselor and one time she admitted to her counselor that she was gay and this lady kept the files ! Naturally her commander called her into her office after this long investigation and reamed her ass out. She said that she called her stupid, dumb and every other name she could think of and then gave her two options. The options were to either quietly be kicked out of the military and lose all benefits and pension with a dishonorable discharge or possibly face a tribunal and be court marshaled and lose everything PLUS possibly go to prison. She took the former. The whole time this lady could barely keep it together while telling this story. She lost about ten years of her life due to this. So the military takes it pretty seriously, yeah… ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2008, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-seriously-does-the-us-military-take-homosexual-misconduct/472691/27 "2008-11-14T16:42:03Z")
> [@Amp](#): > > What kind of discharge would a homosexual get when getting drummed out of the service? Honorable? General under honorable conditions? Dishonorable? Honorable. The anti-DADT crowd had (and has) a big problem with the policy because of that, claiming that everyone who gets kicked out pretends to be gay to get an HD. ---
**Author:** ![Antinor01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@Antinor01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antinor01)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2008, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-seriously-does-the-us-military-take-homosexual-misconduct/472691/28 "2008-11-14T17:20:51Z")
> [@Illuminatiprimus](#): > > Children out of wedlock is another area where the US is about 50 years behind Europe (and possibly other parts of the western world too). I know tons of people who have had children outside of marriage or had the children first and the wedding later, and neither I nor anyone I know gives a shit. The US military culture as a whole is about 50 years behind. It’s not really the US in general that cares much about most of the issues that can get you kicked out of the military. ---
**Author:** ![MsRobyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/90ced4/32.png) [@MsRobyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsRobyn)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2008, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-seriously-does-the-us-military-take-homosexual-misconduct/472691/29 "2008-11-14T17:36:23Z")
> [@Mr.Moto](#): > > I’d like to reply to some misconceptions that seem to be developing in this thread. > > The actions against a servicemember who fathers or bears a child out of wedlock aren’t borne out of some old-fashioned sense of propriety - they are there because these matters have a massive impact on that member’s mission readiness - especially with regard to their ability to deploy overseas. > > Any currently serving servicemember or veteran likely has stories where matters like this had an adverse impact on their unit. That’s a minor matter if you work in an insurance office. It isn’t so minor in the desert or at sea or in an airplane. What I also got in training (I had various transient assignments with pregnant, unmarried women) was that you can’t always count on males to be around when you need them to be there – they may be deployed or deployable. So those who didn’t have family to look after the child while the mother was deployed were encouraged to separate from the military. There was also a subtext of “you’ve made your bed, now lie in it.” Robin ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2008, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-seriously-does-the-us-military-take-homosexual-misconduct/472691/30 "2008-11-14T17:49:24Z")
> [@diggleblop](#): > > I listen to OutQ in the morning every morning (it’s a gay station on Sirius) and a few months ago they had an expose’ regarding being gay in the military. > > Well, one lady called in and told her story and it was pretty heart wrenching to say the least. She said that she had gone all the way through the military academy, coming out an officer and then she put in another 5 or 6 years of service. She said that she wanted to become a military investigator and she had to go through a thorough background investigation beforehand, which is to be expected for anyone. She, being gay, was worried about them finding out about her “secret” and thought that there was no way they would ever find out. > > Well, they went back all the way to her high school guidance counselor and one time she admitted to her counselor that she was gay and this lady kept the files ! Naturally her commander called her into her office after this long investigation and reamed her ass out. She said that she called her stupid, dumb and every other name she could think of and then gave her two options. The options were to either quietly be kicked out of the military and lose all benefits and pension with a dishonorable discharge or possibly face a tribunal and be court marshaled and lose everything PLUS possibly go to prison. She took the former… A few points to make here. First off, there is nothing “quiet” about a Dishonorable Discharge (DD). Only a general court-martial can issue a DD. Getting one is the equivalent of a felony conviction, and has to be put on employment applications, etc. Nobody accepts a DD quietly. There are many other types of discharge between the scale of honorable discharge to DD, including a general discharge [under honorable conditions], “other than honorable” (OTH) discharge, bad conduct discharge, etc. Second, you appear to be surprised that the background investigation went as far back as a high school guidance counselor. You should realize that it has to be that way. If a background investigation could discover this, so could a foreign intelligence agent (i.e. a spy). An enemy agent could threaten to reveal her secret unless she turned over classified information. People with access to sensitive or classified information cannot have hidden secrets about themselves, and it is the job of a background investigation to discover anything like this. During my background investigation for a Top Secret clearance when I entered the submarine force, investigators apparently interviewed high school guidance counselors, classmates, friends, etc., in multiple states where I had lived growing up. I got calls from old friends that I had lost contact with years before telling me that they had been interviewed by agents. ---
**Author:** ![chacoguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@chacoguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chacoguy)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2008, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-seriously-does-the-us-military-take-homosexual-misconduct/472691/31 "2008-11-14T18:40:30Z")
If memory serves, Jimmy Hendrix got himself tossed out of the Army by revealing that he was gay. I, for one, feel that this is solid proof that one chooses to be gay and can then choose not to. :rolleyes: Go Jimmy! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2008, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-seriously-does-the-us-military-take-homosexual-misconduct/472691/32 "2008-11-14T19:03:40Z")
> [@chacoguy420](#): > > If memory serves, Jimmy Hendrix got himself tossed out of the Army by revealing that he was gay. I, for one, feel that this is solid proof that one chooses to be gay and can then choose not to. :rolleyes: > > Go Jimmy! 😃 First of, it’s _Jimi_. 🙂 Second, I thought he hurt his foot jumping out of airplanes and was medically separated. Edit: Here’s what Wikipedia says: > [@](#): > > His commanding officers and fellow soldiers considered him to be a sub-par soldier: he slept while on duty, had little regard for regulations, required constant supervision, and showed no skill as a marksman. For these reasons, his commanding officers submitted a request that Hendrix be discharged from the military after he had served only one year. Hendrix did not object when the opportunity to leave arose.[25] Hendrix would later tell reporters that he received a medical discharge after breaking his ankle during his 26th parachute jump. The 2005 biography Room Full of Mirrors by Charles Cross claims that Hendrix faked being homosexual -— claiming to have fallen in love with a fellow soldier -— in order to be discharged, but has never produced credible evidence to support this contention. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2008, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-seriously-does-the-us-military-take-homosexual-misconduct/472691/33 "2008-11-14T21:09:03Z")
> [@robby](#): > > Second, you appear to be surprised that the background investigation went as far back as a high school guidance counselor. You should realize that it has to be that way. If a background investigation could discover this, so could a foreign intelligence agent (i.e. a spy). An enemy agent could threaten to reveal her secret unless she turned over classified information. People with access to sensitive or classified information cannot have hidden secrets about themselves, and it is the job of a background investigation to discover anything like this. Well, if the government wouldn’t require people to keep secrets about themselves, there wouldn’t be this problem, right? An out gay man or lesbian is way less blackmailable than a closeted one, especially a forced-to-be-closeted one. ---
**Author:** ![Illuminatiprimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/illuminatiprimus/32/11520_2.png) [@Illuminatiprimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illuminatiprimus)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2008, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-seriously-does-the-us-military-take-homosexual-misconduct/472691/34 "2008-11-14T21:29:10Z")
**jayjay** - stop applying logic to government policy on homosexuality, it’ll just give you a headache and won’t achieve anything. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2008, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-seriously-does-the-us-military-take-homosexual-misconduct/472691/35 "2008-11-14T21:50:21Z")
> [@diggleblop](#): > > possibly face a tribunal and be court marshaled and lose everything PLUS possibly go to prison. What would be the average prison term for Soldiering While Gay? ---
**Author:** ![gravitycrash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@gravitycrash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gravitycrash)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2008, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-seriously-does-the-us-military-take-homosexual-misconduct/472691/36 "2008-11-14T21:56:03Z")
We had a Navy Corpsman in our platoon who was not openly gay but it was fairly obvious to everybody. This was between 1983-1987. He was a great guy and a good field doc. He always took care of my blistered feet after a 20 mile force march. He was there for only about 6 months or so, I don’t know if he got booted out or not, the point is that even back then the guys didn’t care if he was gay or not. He did his job and didn’t try to grope anyone. ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2008, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-seriously-does-the-us-military-take-homosexual-misconduct/472691/37 "2008-11-14T22:34:47Z")
> [@robby](#): > > In any event, having a child out of wedlock is not a violation of the Uniformed Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). I have never heard of anyone facing disciplinary action for this alleged offense. You’ll find that you mean Uniform Code, but I can only speak for what I’ve seen; I’m no military legal scholar. That said, it could be just what **Mississippienne** said here: > [@](#): > > A single parent cannot enlist in the military. …since the separation did, in fact, occur while the guy was in basic training. And for the record, the prevailing attitude seemed to be “go home and take care of your kid” rather than “you sick deviant!”. **Mr. Moto** is right that most of the instances in which the U.S. military curtails the liberties of its people are based on the importance of getting the job done, not an old-fashioned sense of propriety. And a lot of servicemembers have legitimate concerns about letting homosexuals serve on crowded ships and boats with them. Unfair and wrong, IMO, but _legitimate_, in that they truly believe it would have an impact on mission readiness, regardless of their personal beliefs about homosexuality. > [@robby](#): > > “Getting sentenced to death for criticizing the President” overstates things, to say the least. At worst, you would be subject to disciplinary action and possibly discharged. Yeah, it wouldn’t actually be enforced that way. Alls I’m saying is I’m pretty damn sure the possibility is there in the UCMJ. > [@DrCube](#): > > Lack of a family care plan and lack of a spouse are two entirely different things. In what way is it worse to have a family care plan without a spouse than to have one while married? The military provides healthcare (ETA: and other benefits) to servicemembers’ spouses and dependents, not to their domestic partners. ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2008, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-seriously-does-the-us-military-take-homosexual-misconduct/472691/38 "2008-11-14T22:55:45Z")
> [@Hostile\_Dialect](#): > > The military provides healthcare (ETA: and other benefits) to servicemembers’ spouses and dependents, not to their domestic partners. That’s not what a family care plan is. An FCP is a plan for who will care for your kids if you’re deployed. It’s got nothing to do with benefits. If you don’t have one, then you can’t deploy. If you can’t deploy, you shouldn’t serve. I read a survey a while back (no cite) that said 70% of servicemembers knew someone in their unit that was gay. Most said they didn’t care. As for whether it matters, it strongly depends on the type of unit. Not because of the sophistication level of MI vs. Grunts, as has been suggested, but the different type of mission. For my MI part, I simply had to shower around the guys. If I were infantry, there’d be many many more times where I’d be naked. People critical of this policy don’t seem to understand the difference between being in the military and working in an office building. You don’t live in the woods with your cubicle partner. You don’t change or shower next to them. You don’t sleep 3 inches from them. This is a lot of the reason why females can’t be in certain units too…not because of their physical strength/endurance, but because of what happens when you put a female in a pup tent with a guy that hasn’t seen his wife in a year. That’s why “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is a great idea, and why we take it seriously (but not always enforce it). ---
**Author:** ![Antinor01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@Antinor01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antinor01)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2008, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-seriously-does-the-us-military-take-homosexual-misconduct/472691/39 "2008-11-14T23:01:43Z")
> [@IntelSoldier](#): > > People critical of this policy don’t seem to understand the difference between being in the military and working in an office building. You don’t live in the woods with your cubicle partner. You don’t change or shower next to them. You don’t sleep 3 inches from them. This is a lot of the reason why females can’t be in certain units too…not because of their physical strength/endurance, but because of what happens when you put a female in a pup tent with a guy that hasn’t seen his wife in a year. > > That’s why “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is a great idea, and why we take it seriously (but not always enforce it). I’m curious to get a soldiers perspective on this. Why do you think the policy is important to keep when so many militaries around the world allow gay soldiers to serve openly and, to my knowledge, have not had major problems? (Something I found almost amusing, Greece bans gays from serving at all. Funny considering their history) ---
**Author:** ![Illuminatiprimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/illuminatiprimus/32/11520_2.png) [@Illuminatiprimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illuminatiprimus)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2008, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-seriously-does-the-us-military-take-homosexual-misconduct/472691/40 "2008-11-14T23:03:19Z")
> [@IntelSoldier](#): > > For my MI part, I simply had to shower around the guys. If I were infantry, there’d be many many more times where I’d be naked. And? I shower/sauna with straight men at the gym all the time and have managed to successfully not attempt to molest any of them so far. > [@](#): > > People critical of this policy don’t seem to understand the difference between being in the military and working in an office building. You don’t live in the woods with your cubicle partner. You don’t change or shower next to them. You don’t sleep 3 inches from them. This is a lot of the reason why females can’t be in certain units too…not because of their physical strength/endurance, but because of what happens when you put a female in a pup tent with a guy that hasn’t seen his wife in a year. > > That’s why “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is a great idea, and why we take it seriously (but not always enforce it). This is crap. No I’m not in the military nor have I ever been, but what you’re effectively saying is that you don’t mix steers and queers because when you do all sorts of hell is going to break loose. Why do you think this would happen? A straight man can spend all day hanging around me naked, if he’s off limits (which straight men tend to be to gay men) then nothing is going to happen. If you’re not saying this then can you please explain yourself a bit better, because so far all I see is “gay men can’t control themselves and shouldn’t be in too close quarters with straight men for their safety”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-seriously-does-the-us-military-take-homosexual-misconduct/472691.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-seriously-does-the-us-military-take-homosexual-misconduct/472691.md?page=3)