•HRES 544 IH 
ployees’’) for decades, causing untold harm to those indi-
viduals professionally, financially, socially, and medically, 
among other harms; 
Whereas Congress enacted legislation, led oversight hearings, 
and issued reports and public pronouncements against 
LGBT military service members, Foreign Service mem-
bers, and civilian employees; 
Whereas the policy that led to the discharge and systematic 
screening of gay, lesbian, and bisexual military service 
members was codified in a 1949 decree by the newly-con-
solidated Department of Defense, which mandated that 
‘‘homosexual personnel, irrespective of sex, should not be 
permitted to serve in any branch of the Armed Forces in 
any capacity and prompt separation of known homo-
sexuals from the Armed Forces is mandatory’’; 
Whereas the Federal Government maintained policies to drive 
hundreds of thousands of LGBT military service mem-
bers, who honorably served the United States in uniform, 
including many who were fighting in wars around the 
world, from its military ranks; 
Whereas, in 1993, Congress enacted the National Defense 
Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1994 (Public Law 
103–160; 107 Stat. 1547), which contained the so-called 
‘‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’’ policy that prohibited lesbian, 
gay, and bisexual military service members from dis-
closing their sexual orientation while they served in the 
Armed Forces; 
Whereas, despite the ‘‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’’ policy, LGBT 
military service members continued to be investigated 
and discharged solely on the basis of the sexual orienta-
tion of those military service members; 
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•HRES 544 IH 
Whereas historians have estimated that at least 100,000 mili-
tary service members were forced out of the Armed 
Forces between World War II and 2011 simply for being 
LGBT, while countless others were forced to hide their 
identities and live in fear while serving; 
Whereas, although the ‘‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’’ policy was in-
tended to allow qualified citizens to serve in the Armed 
Forces regardless of their sexual orientation, the policy 
was inherently discriminatory against LGBT military 
service members because it prohibited those service mem-
bers from disclosing their sexual orientation; 
Whereas, with the enactment of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell 
Repeal Act of 2010 (10 U.S.C. 654 note; Public Law 
111–321), Congress joined military leaders in acknowl-
edging that lesbian, gay, and bisexual military service 
members serve the United States just as bravely and well 
as other military service members; 
Whereas the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Act of 2010 (10 
U.S.C. 654 note; Public Law 111–321) and the 2016 pol-
icy shift of the Department of Defense, which permitted 
transgender individuals to enlist and openly serve in the 
Armed Forces, has made the Armed Forces stronger and 
more effective; 
Whereas military leaders have likewise acknowledged that, in 
addition to lesbian, gay, and bisexual military service 
members, transgender service members also serve the 
United States just as bravely and well as other service 
members; 
Whereas, under the pressures of the Cold War, and at the 
instigation and lead of Congress, the Federal Government 
also pursued anti-LGBT policies, which resulted in tens 
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•HRES 544 IH 
of thousands of LGBT civilian employees being termi-
nated; 
Whereas the Department of State began investigations into 
employees for alleged homosexual activity as early as the 
1940s; 
Whereas, following Senator Joseph McCarthy’s targeting of 
gay employees in the Department of State in 1950, the 
Senate held hearings on ‘‘The Employment of Homo-
sexuals and other Sex Perverts in the Government’’, 
which— 
(1) led to the issuance of a widely read report that 
falsely asserted that gay people posed a security risk be-
cause they could be easily blackmailed; and 
(2) found that gay people were unsuitable employees 
because ‘‘one homosexual can pollute a Government of-
fice’’; 
Whereas, in response to Senator McCarthy’s allegations 
against gay people, the Department of State increased its 
persecution of lesbian, gay, and bisexual employees; 
Whereas more than 1,000 Department of State employees 
were dismissed due to their sexual orientation, and many 
more individuals were prevented from joining the Depart-
ment of State due to discriminatory hiring practices; 
Whereas thousands of lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals 
served honorably in the Department of State as Foreign 
Service officers, Foreign Service specialists, civil servants, 
and contractors, upholding the values, and advancing the 
interests, of the United States even as the country dis-
criminated against them; 
Whereas the effort to purge gay and lesbian employees from 
the Federal Government was codified in 1953 when 
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President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued Executive Order 
10450 (18 Fed. Reg. 2489; relating to security require-
ments for Government employment), which— 
(1) defined ‘‘perversion’’ as a security threat; and 
(2) mandated that every civilian employee and con-
tractor pass a security clearance; 
Whereas, over many decades, the Federal Government, led by 
security officials in the Federal Bureau of Investigation, 
the Civil Service Commission (referred to in this pre-
amble as the ‘‘CSC’’), and nearly every other agency of 
the Federal Government, investigated, harassed, interro-
gated, and terminated thousands of lesbian, gay, and bi-
sexual civilian employees for no other reason than the 
sexual orientation of those employees; 
Whereas these discriminatory policies by the Federal Govern-
ment, the largest employer in the United States, encour-
aged similar efforts at the State and local level, particu-
larly in higher education and the private sector; 
Whereas, in 1969, the United States Court of Appeals for the 
District of Columbia Circuit ruled in Norton v. Macy, 
417 F.2d 1161 (1969) that— 
(1) ‘‘homosexual conduct’’ may never be the sole 
cause for dismissal of a protected civilian employee; and 
(2) the potential embarrassment stemming from the 
private conduct of a civilian employee may not affect the 
efficiency of the Federal civil service; 
Whereas, despite the decision in Norton v. Macy, the CSC 
continued its efforts to rid the Federal Government of 
gay, lesbian, and bisexual employees until 1973, when the 
United States District Court for the Northern District of 
California ruled in Society for Individual Rights, Inc. v. 
Hampton, 63 F.R.D. 399 (1973) that the exclusion or 
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•HRES 544 IH 
discharge from Federal civil service of any lesbian, gay, 
or bisexual person because of prejudice was prohibited; 
Whereas many Federal Government agencies, including the 
National Security Agency, the Central Intelligence Agen-
cy, and the Department of State, none of which were 
subject to the rules of the CSC, continued to harass and 
seek to exclude lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals 
from their ranks until 1995, when President Bill Clinton 
issued Executive Order 12968 (50 U.S.C. 3161 note; re-
lating to access to classified information), which barred 
the practice of denying a Federal Government security 
clearance solely on the basis of sexual orientation; 
Whereas transgender military service members, Foreign Serv-
ice members, and civilian employees continued to be har-
assed and excluded from Federal civil service until 2014, 
when President Barack Obama issued Executive Order 
13672 (79 Fed. Reg. 42971; relating to further amend-
ments to Executive Order 11478, Equal Employment Op-
portunity in the Federal Government, and Executive 
Order 11246, Equal Employment Opportunity), which 
prohibited the Federal Government and Federal contrac-
tors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orienta-
tion or gender identity; 
Whereas, on January 9, 2017, Secretary of State John Kerry 
issued a formal apology for the pattern of discrimination 
against LGBT Foreign Service members and civilian em-
ployees at the Department of State; 
Whereas, despite persecution and systematic mistreatment by 
the Federal Government beginning in the early 1940s 
though the 1990s, including what historians have labeled 
as the ‘‘Lavender Scare’’, LGBT individuals have never 
stopped honorably serving the United States; 
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