Good news if you're gay and were kicked out because of it (UK).

[NutLoose]

If you lost any medals because of it, you are about to get them reinstated.


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-51203327

[Vendee]

"They cut it [the medal] off my chest with a big pair of scissors."

Disgraceful way to treat a serviceman or servicewoman. It makes me feel ashamed for my country and the forces that I served in. I'm just a normal guy, not LGBT in any way but to think we were doing this sort of thing to our service personnel as late as 1993....... I don't know what to say.

[charliegolf]

Would people thrown out lose pension entitlement they'd accrued?

CG

[heights good]

Its a weird world we live in that something such as a colleague who was LGBT brought out the worst in people.

I hope that they are treated with parity and all rights they lost are reinstated such as lost pension, lost pay and honourable discharges all around.

[Capt Scribble]

Psst Vendee, “I'm just a normal guy, not LGBT in any way “. They think they are normal as well. I make no comment!

[heights good]

Psst Vendee, “I'm just a normal guy, not LGBT in any way “. They think they are normal as well. I make no comment!

You did make comment.

I fully understand what you meant and it could cause offence, but people view the world through their own eyes. What you and I see as normal can be very different, neither opinion is wrong per se, just different based on context.

There was no malice meant in the comment, lets not descend into a melee of playground back and forth.

[Union Jack]

"They cut it [the medal] off my chest with a big pair of scissors."

Disgraceful way to treat a serviceman or servicewoman. It makes me feel ashamed for my country and the forces that I served in. I'm just a normal guy, not LGBT in any way but to think we were doing this sort of thing to our service personnel as late as 1993....... I don't know what to say.

It certainly looks like the BBC are saying it for you, observing that they ran virtually the same story at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-50720216 o 10 December.

Jack

[Saintsman]

I am aware that people are more enlightened these days, but they joined up at the time knowing the rules and they chose to ignore them.

I do recall a case where someone straight had their career put on hold because a gay colleague had made a pass at him and he did not report it (someone else did report him and he told the SIB about everyone he'd tried it on with). The investigations went on for some time before he could go back to his normal life. It wasn't all one sided.

[jindabyne]

During 28 years in the RAF, I never knowingly encountered a gay person. Or so I thought. There must have been several that I wasn't aware of. So what?

[DrCuffe]

I think "so what" is the correct response here. I think also a sense of celebration that a wrong is being put right.

[NutLoose]

Wasn't the thinking at the time you could be a security risk if discovered by the other side and blackmailed? The fact that if the RAF knew it would negate that problem was lost on them.

Not that way inclined myself but I thought it was totally wrong to discriminate that way....

BUT it did have the odd advantage I know of one guy who was straighter than a beam of laser light who announced he was gay so he could take advantage of leaving the RAF without paying to buy himself out.

[megan]

Wasn't the thinking at the time you could be a security risk if discovered by the other side and blackmailedThe Alan Turing case is indicative of thinking at the time. Turing was prosecuted in 1952 for homosexual acts; the Labouchere Amendment of 1885 had mandated that "gross indecency" was a criminal offence in the UK. He accepted chemical castration treatment, with Diethylstilbestrol, as an alternative to prison. In 2009, following an Internet campaign, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown made an official public apology on behalf of the British government for "the appalling way he was treated". Queen Elizabeth II granted Turing a posthumous pardon in 2013. The Alan Turing law is now an informal term for a 2017 law in the United Kingdom that retroactively pardoned men cautioned or convicted under historical legislation that outlawed homosexual acts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing

[SASless]

The US Military has evolved its attitudes on this from considering it a Mortal Sin (Dishonorable Discharge with possible Prison Time) to allowing open behavior that does not run afoul of the "fraternization regulation).

We have had some rather serious security failures by LGBT persons but none due to blackmail that have made the newspapers.

[nonsense]

Psst Vendee, “I'm just a normal guy, not LGBT in any way “. They think they are normal as well. I make no comment!

"Normal" isn't really the right word to use here.
To be short sighted or to be over 6 feet tall or to be left handed is not normal. But in each case, it IS ordinary.
To be gay is about as common as being left handed; not "normal" but definitely ordinary.

[gijoe]

I am left handed and really couldn’t care less about someone’s sexual orientation - but get concerned about the constant bending over backwards to be seen to be open and welcoming to LGBTQ+ individuals. It has gone too far.

The UK Armed Forces are about the use of violence to change behaviour - not attending Pride events and splashing it all over Soldier/RAF/Navy News.

[Wrathmonk]

What happened to individuals, who whilst undergoing additional vetting, told their vetting officer they were gay? Was this one of the occasions when the “catholic confessional” clause was broken and the vetting officer reported, in clear, the reasons or did they just fail their vetting, with no reason given, and the individual was posted to less sensitive duties?

[Blue_Circle]

We have had some rather serious security failures by LGBT persons but none due to blackmail that have made the newspapers.
More or less than those attributed to 'straight' personnel?

[Ken Scott]

To be short sighted or to be over 6 feet tall or to be left handed is not normal.

As someone who is over 6ft tall & short-sighted I resent that accusation!!

[muppetofthenorth]

What happened to individuals, who whilst undergoing additional vetting, told their vetting officer they were gay? Was this one of the occasions when the “catholic confessional” clause was broken and the vetting officer reported, in clear, the reasons or did they just fail their vetting, with no reason given, and the individual was posted to less sensitive duties?
When I first went through DV before joining up I was told by the ex-copper doing my interview that in the bad old days they used that as a final filter. That people who admitted to being gay then found themselves failing to gain the clearance and subsequently couldn't serve.

[Mil-26Man]

To be short sighted or to be over 6 feet tall or to be left handed is not normal.
As someone who is over 6ft tall & short-sighted I resent that accusation!!


As someone who is over 6ft tall, short-sighted AND left-handed, I really resent that accusation!!

Amused by the posters feeling the need to spell out the fact they they themselves aren't gay. I guess old prejudices die hard.

[Vendee]

Amused by the posters feeling the need to spell out the fact they they themselves aren't gay. I guess old prejudices die hard.

In my post #2, I didn't make my point very eloquently and perhaps I should have expressed myself differently. I was trying to convey that I didn't have an agenda and I wasn't supporting this man because I shared his sexual beliefs, I was supporting him because he was a fellow human being and fellow ex-serviceman.

Regarding old prejudices, well yes hands up here. I did have them in my teens and into my early 20's as I'm sure most of my friends at the time had. But as you get older, your views change and develop. For me it was around the time that my two sons were born and I asked myself "would you love them any less if they turned out to be gay?" The answer of course was no. You then examine your own prejudices.

[woptb]

I am left handed and really couldn’t care less about someone’s sexual orientation - but get concerned about the constant bending over backwards to be seen to be open and welcoming to LGBTQ+ individuals. It has gone too far.

The UK Armed Forces are about the use of violence to change behaviour - not attending Pride events and splashing it all over Soldier/RAF/Navy News.

I’m guessing you don’t do irony!

[Mil-26Man]

...and splashing it all over Soldier/RAF/Navy News.

Whatever floats your boat, gijoe.