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(Washington) A Pentagon document classifies
homosexuality as a mental disorder, decades after mental health experts
abandoned that position.
The document outlines retirement or other
discharge policies for service members with physical disabilities, and in a
section on defects lists homosexuality alongside mental retardation and
personality disorders.
Critics said the reference underscores the
Pentagon's failing policies on gays, and adds to a culture that has created
uncertainty and insecurity around the treatment of homosexual service members,
leading to anti-gay harassment.
Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Jeremy M. Martin said
the policy document is under review.
The Pentagon has a "don't ask, don't
tell" policy that prohibits the military from inquiring about the sex lives
of service members but requires discharges of those who openly acknowledge being
gay.
The Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in
the Military, at the University of California at Santa Barbara, uncovered the
document and pointed to it as further proof that the military deserves failing
grades for its treatment of gays.
Nathaniel Frank, senior research fellow at the
center, said, "The policy reflects the department's continued
misunderstanding of homosexuality and makes it more difficult for gays and
lesbians to access mental health services."
The document, called a Defense Department
Instruction, was condemned by medical professionals, members of Congress and
other experts, including the American Psychiatric Association.
"It is disappointing that certain Department
of Defense instructions include homosexuality as a 'mental disorder' more than
30 years after the mental health community recognized that such a classification
was a mistake," said Rep. Marty Meehan, D-Mass.
Congress members noted that other Pentagon
regulations dealing with mental health do not include homosexuality on any lists
of psychological disorders. And in a letter to Defense Secretary Donald H.
Rumsfeld on Monday, nine lawmakers asked for a full review of all documents and
policies to ensure they reflect that same standard.
"Based on scientific and medical evidence
the APA declassified homosexuality as a mental disorder in 1973 - a position
shared by all other major health and mental health organizations based on their
own review of the science," James H. Scully Jr., head of the psychiatric
association, said in a letter to the Defense Department's top doctor earlier
this month.
There were 726 military members discharged under
the "don't ask, don't tell" policy during the budget year that ended
last Sept. 30. That marked the first year since 2001 that the total had
increased. The number of discharges had declined each year since it peaked at
1,227 in 2001, and had fallen to 653 in 2004.
©365Gay.com 2006
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