From: ecl@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper)
Subject: Re: Jewish War Veterans on gays in military
Organization: AT&T
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 17:48:58 GMT

In article <1992Dec22.181004.23855@wixer.cactus.org> lazarus@wixer.cactus.org (Michael Lax) writes:
> The following is an excerpt from the Jewish War Veterans of the USA
> Adopted Resolutions at their 97th National Convention on Aug. 16-23,
> 1992 at the Stouffer Harborplace Hotel in Baltimore, MD.
> 
> [resolution omitted]

Here's the text of the letter I'm sending; the address is 1811 R Street NW,
Washington DC 20009:

I was very disappointed to read recently that your 97th National Convention
passed a resolution asking the Department of Defense to "enforce regulations
which forbid homosexual acts amongst U.S.  military personnel."
.P
The article I read said that your convention stated, "It has been confirmed
that 42% of soldiers testing HIV-positive had homosexual sex, in direct
violation of the policy of U. S. armed forces."
.P
One might as well say that since 58% of soldiers testing HIV-positive had
exclusively heterosexual sex, the Department of Defense should forbid
heterosexual acts amongst U. S. military personnel.
.P
Or even better, that since 100% of soldiers testing HIV-positive drank water,
the Department of Defense should forbid drinking water by U. S. military
personnel.
.P
As any statistician will explain, you need to look at what percentage of people
involved in the theoretical causal behavior exhibit the result, not what
percentage of the people exhibiting the result participated in the theoretical
causal behavior.  In this case, AIDS is known to have many vectors, including
unprotected heterosexual or homosexual sex with infected persons, the sharing
of needles with infected persons, the transfusion of infected blood, etc.
.P
It is also worth noting that the policy of the U. S. armed forces forbids
almost all forms of \fIheterosexual\fR sex as well, as the recent court martial
of a serviceman for having oral sex with his girlfriend will confirm.
If you are going to ask that some Department of Defense regulations be fully
enforced, then you should recognize that you may discover other regulations
being enforced that you wished to exclude.
.P
As for "the insidious effect which the effort [to remove the ban against gay
men and lesbians] has upon the morale of men and women who serve in our
nation's armed forces," the argument usually given is that lifting the ban
"would be prejudicial to good order and discipline."  If my memory serves me
right those are the exact words or close to the words spoken by the military
leaders when Truman terminated discrimination of blacks in the military.
Truman signed the executive order in spite of these arguments, and good order
and discipline did not suffer.  And at one time it was forbidden for Jews to
serve as chaplains in the U. S. military.  I'm sure similar "morale" arguments
were given then as well.
.P
I believe very strongly that discrimination on any basis other than job
performance has no place in the military, and in particular, that the current
policy of discrimination against gay men and lesbians is wrong.  And I believe
that as Jews we have a responsibility to recognize unfair discrimination
when it occurs and fight against it.  It is because of this that I hope to
see your organization reconsider this issue and come out in favor of equal
treatment for all.

Evelyn C. Leeper  |  +1 908 957 2070  |  att!mtgzy!ecl or  ecl@mtgzy.att.com
--
"God does not play dice with the universe."  --Albert Einstein
"Albert, stop telling God what to do."  --Niels Bohr
Newsgroups: soc.motss,alt.atheism