Homos in the UK Army 2
Gay Army Men, 1961 to Today
1961
Since 1961, the disciplinary powers of the armed services—the Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force (RAF)—had been dealt with under an Armed Forces Bill, reviewed every five years. In April 1991, the committee maintained the longstanding line that homosexual activity was unacceptable and, in certain cases, breached longstanding Service law, even if acknowledging that it caused ‘very real distress and loss to the Services of some men and women of undoubted competence and good character’.
The stance of the UK armed forces to homosexuality needs to be placed in a broader context. The attitudes towards sexuality in the First and Second World Wars, driven by the need for manpower in the age of total war, were perhaps more liberal than in the professional peacetime military.
During the First World War, attitudes to gay men in the forces were ’much harsher than that of the Second World War’, yet there were ‘positive experiences’ even if punishments could be punitive.
In the Second World War, the authorities had taken a relatively relaxed approach to men who engaged in sex with other men in the military, but, as historian Emma Vickers shows, this pragmatic approach was replaced by a ‘solid doctrine’ of expulsion post-war.
The hardening of attitudes was part of a retrenchment in wider post-war society and the return to a smaller force, even with National Service until 1960; although the number of homosexual men in the army was ‘very small’, War Office guidance urged that acts of indecency needed to be dealt with ‘swiftly and with every appearance of severity’.
Section 41 of the 1955 Army Act made it an offence to commit any act which, if committed in the UK, was publishable by the law, and soldiers and officers could be dealt with under Section 66 of the act making ‘disgraceful conduct of a cruel, indecent or unnatural kind’ publishable by court martial and imprisonment or discharge.
The Sexual Offences Act of 1967
In the Royal Navy, the 1957 Naval Discipline Act equally warned that officers guilty of ‘cruelty, or of any scandalous, fraudulent or other conduct unbecoming’ would be liable to dismissal, whilst anyone in the service guilty of ‘disgraceful conduct of an indecent kind shall be liable to dismissal with disgrace’.
Policy in the RAF was the same; section 66 of the Air Force Act of 1955 ruled ‘Any person subject to air-force law who is guilty of disgraceful conduct of a cruel, indecent or unnatural kind shall, on conviction by court-martial, be liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or any less punishment provided by this Act’.
The Sexual Offences Act of 1967 did not change the situation; now regarded as a landmark piece of legislation, the Act was conservative in nature and caveated in that same sex activity in private between anyone over the age of 21 remained an offence ‘under any provision of the Army Act 1955, the Air Force Act 1955 or the Naval Discipline Act 1957’.
Service personnel could, therefore, be prosecuted under military law for homosexual activity that would not be prosecuted in the civilian sphere. The armed services could also discharge personnel (‘service no longer required’, or SNLR) as an alternative, an administrative mechanism used more frequently than prosecution.
There were several reasons for this stance. Security was only one, albeit a strong one. In the late 1960s, the Royal Navy commissioned Donald MacIntyre, a wartime naval officer, to complete a study of sexuality and security, after a series of scandals.
Whilst MacIntyre acknowledged many ‘ratings and presumably a few officers’ had experienced ‘some form of homosexual adventure’, the report maintained existing policy.
In December 1969, the Director of Naval Security remained of the view that homosexuality was a disciplinary, moral, health and security issue that involved ‘disgusting, infamous or immoral’ behaviour.
A decade later, the MOD justified its stance, arguing that HM Forces were ‘required to serve in conditions where, both on and off duty, they are unavoidably living in closed communities, sometimes under stress and without contacts with the opposite sex.
Such conditions and the need for absolute trust and confidence both within and between all ranks require that the potentially disruptive influence of homosexual practices should be excluded’.
HIV/AIDS
The paper itself fell into a series of homosexual tropes and highlighted the key problem facing the MOD: it lacked real evidence to support its conclusions.
The evidence was out of date; the only UK example was from 1977, citing the case of a Regimental Sargent Major who had been court martialled and dismissed, having started a homosexual relationship with a private whilst in barracks.
The only other example was an Australian, attached to joint exercises in 1994, who, having been open about his sexuality, proved to be ‘disruptive’ and was sent home.
In addition to the arguments already raised by VCDS, Sir John Willis, the ‘review’ introduced other fears that could be deployed, including notably health, including HIV and sexually transmitted infections.
It suggested the largest number of HIV/AIDS patients were ‘intravenous drug users, and homosexual and bi-sexual men’, with only 25 per cent of sufferers brought heterosexual. Homosexuals were also more likely, the paper argued, to get an STI.
The paper continued the argument on discipline with the conformity to group standards contrary to ‘the homosexual ethos of individuality and freedom of choice’, whilst a change in rules would also put off the ‘majority of fit young healthy individuals’ from joining.
Homosexuals would also undermine cohesiveness, and even the potential threat would not be worth running the risk. There was no evidence cited to support these conclusions, and external views were cherry picked to support the established line.
The views of historian and commentator John Keegan were approvingly cited. ‘The moment for experimentation with homosexual military rights is not yet with us’, Keegan was quoted, ‘and probably never will be’.
The MOD’s own internal briefing paper lacked, as one respondent made clear, external evidence, whilst others pointed to the wider ambivalence in society on sexuality and the knowledge that despite the official ban, homosexuals had served in the armed forces
UK policy was ‘old fashioned and prejudiced’, with a US-style ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ approach seen as more favourable one an outright ban. In other areas, the MOD’s paper went into stereotypes that were untrue. One of the paragraphs implied ‘homosexuals are … untidy individuals who cannot accept discipline’.
This was untrue, one response noted, ‘when two MC winners were cited’ in the evidence, adding ‘This is akin to saying that all burglars carry a bag marked “Swag” and all drug abusers are long haired hippies with blood shot eyes’.
The Royal Navy’s approach to gathering information was different and marked—whatever the underpinning motivations—a real effort to build an evidence-based approach. In August, the Commander-in-Chief Fleet, Admiral Sir Hugo White, forwarded to the First Sea Lord the findings of an informal survey of ‘junior’ personnel.
Though it was far from ‘scientifically systematic’ its findings covered a cross section of the fleet down to the ‘messdeck level’.
The wider themes to emerge were, White revealed, that there was a weight of opinion against changing the ‘ban’ with few ‘liberal minded individuals. Known homosexuals would ‘attract provocation, ridicule and bullying’, with discipline suffering as a result. The Royal Navy was also seen as the exception, thanks to the nature of service life on board warships.
There was also a feeling that, if change happened, it showed that ‘top brass’ was vulnerable to the whims of Ministers and wider society. White himself pointed to the changing nature of service in Britain, seeing any end to the ban as a major change and ‘erosion in conditions of service’, adding to the list of ‘women at sea, Options for Change, [and] Defence Cost Studies’.
Royal Navy
In short, the Royal Navy was not a testbed for ‘social experimentation’ driven, in his view, by ‘vociferous lobbying by a minority group’.
The Royal Navy’s approach to collecting evidence from personnel, and the need to gather evidence to address judicial criticism of policy, was reflected in the formation and work of the ‘Homosexuality Policy Assessment Team’ (or HPAT), set up within MOD in August 1995.
Officially, HPAT was to carry out ‘an objective and comprehensive internal examination and assessment of the MOD’s Policy on homosexuality’, submitting its report to help the Select Committee on the Armed Forces Bill, which was due to start work in early 1996.
It was ‘not a moral or religious condemnation’, the team noted, but an attempt to ‘consider the evidence’ and make the case, the claim of objectivity notwithstanding, for exclusion from service life based on evidence collected from the services.
During the deliberations, it was made clear Michael Heseltine, the Deputy Prime Minister, believed policy ‘will not change’ and pushed for the HPAT team’s work to be sped up to issue a ‘very firm statement of Government policy’.
The approach of using HPAT to generate evidence to maintain the current line echoed an earlier attempt by, in this case, the FCO to support its stance on homosexuals—a strategy that had ultimately failed. In 1982, the FCO undertook a ‘global review on attitudes to homosexuality’ to identify where officials could, and could not, work.
Whilst the findings of the survey—that 80 per cent of countries were ‘closed’ to homosexual diplomats – helped shore up the official line, wider events beyond the control of the department dictated change.
The team was led by Paul Schulte, an MOD official who had dealt with procurement and medical support and assisted by a team from across all three services, plus a psychologist.
The final report, completed in early 1996, was the most comprehensive attempt by the MOD to assess homosexuality in the services, using focus group work, an anonymous survey sent to over 13,400 personnel, and visits overseas to see how policy elsewhere was implemented.
Yet despite its seemingly comprehensive nature, there were real limits. Only two homosexual personnel, both in the process of discharge, were interviewed, and, whilst the report was guided by the view that homosexuals were ‘no less physically capable, brave, dependable and skilled’ than heterosexuals, it concluded their sexuality posed issues for service integration.
This was an entirely predictable outcome. Indeed, as Duncan Lustig-Prean told MPs later, HPAT was never ‘representative of the issue it is considering’ and, as a result, it was ‘unable to conclude anything other than the continuance of the existing policy’.
In the House, Edwina Currie echoed such views; it was ‘bizarre that the MOD should commission a survey among soldiers’, she said. ‘One might … have stuck up the notice on the mess board saying, “No gays wanted here”’, she argued, whilst the MOD’s stance was one of pandering to prejudice.
One anonymous critic commented that despite many homosexuals serving, the team would mostly encounter personnel who maintained a ‘bravado and machoism of those who are simply ill informed and prejudiced without reasonable grounds. Many were unlikely to ‘speak candidly and will simply “keep their heads down”’.
There was little surprise that the report concluded that there was ‘overwhelming support’ for the policy to ‘exclude homosexuals from the British Armed Forces’. Responses to a postal survey, revealed that 86 per cent of the Royal Navy and Army were opposed to change, a conclusion supported by 76 per cent of the RAF.
Having reproduced what would be described today as homophobic responses almost verbatim, the report concluded most of the ‘personnel surveyed did not want the present policy … changed. If the ban were to be lifted now, it would be done against their wishes and professional judgement’. #
Focus groups revealed, the HPAT team reported, a widespread belief that ‘homosexuality was not “normal” or “natural”’. In fact, responses suggested that it was generally seen as ‘abnormal’.
#‘A view expressed in most focus groups’, the report added, ‘was that at the end of a “9 to 5” job, one could usually get away from a homosexual if one wanted to, but for the military … one might have to live with the same people’.
#On the question of discipline, the conclusion was that homosexuals ‘would be ignored, insulted, or even attacked’. Thus, for their own protection and discipline, the ban would have to stay.
Human rights
Even a cursory reading of the HPAT report reveals its limitations; very little evidence was included to support a change, whereas the ‘analysis of problem areas’—including areas such as ‘controlling homosexual behaviour’, assaults on homosexual personnel, cliques and pairings, avoidance, among others—tended to be supported by direct quotes from letters and discussion groups showing a homophobic line. #
Those interviewed as part of the report worked in a service culture that was, it can be suggested, broadly conservative in nature, and had been shaped by longstanding policy that saw homosexuality as inimical to life in the services.
It was easy, therefore, to take a negative line to change, and the HPAT report achieved its short-term aim of providing evidence to the Select Committee on the Armed Forces Bill, justifying the present MOD line.
In spite of the flaws in the report, and contrary evidence from other groups, the Select Committee accepted the ‘extensive’ evidence from the HPAT team, revealing the prevailing view that ‘operational effectiveness’ would be impacted by change, and the committee accepted the view from the MOD that ‘there are no non-Defence priorities which should override considerations of military effectiveness’. The committee concluded,
We acknowledge the force of the human rights arguments put forward but recognise that there has to be a balance struck between the rights of the individual and the needs of the whole.
# In an organisation in which strict discipline and good morale are essential to success, it has long been accepted that members must live with certain restrictions on their freedom that do not apply in civilian life.
# We are persuaded by the surveys summarised in the MoD Report (the findings of which were borne out by the evidence we gathered privately) of the strength of opposition throughout the Armed Services to any relaxation of the current bar. We accept that the presence of openly homosexual servicemen and women would have a significant adverse impact on morale and, ultimately, on operational effectiveness.
#This outcome would not be in anyone’s interests. In assessing the case for a change of policy the Government is right to take full account of the views of the Armed Forces themselves and place great weight on a consideration of their interests. On this basis, we do not recommend any change to the current policy.
HPAT won the immediate battle, not the wider war.
Whilst it had achieved what it set out to do—to shape the views of the Select Committee on the Armed Forces Bill and guide wider discussion on disciplinary issues- HPAT could never silence opposition, nor could it prevent wider legal arguments over the policy.
Although the House of Commons, and later the Lords, voted to continue current policy, it faced vocal opposition from individuals, including the long-term critic, Edwina Currie, who, with cross party support, had tabled an amendment to the Armed Forces Bill, aiming to lift the ban. It was the ‘highlight of the week’, she recorded in her diary:
I used the Stonewall material and performed quite effectively; lots of those who attended out of politeness had planned to slope off home stayed to listen, so we had a well-attended Chamber and lots of short excellent speeches. Labour had a free vote and all their Select Committee members voted against, with John Reid barracked heavily by his own side.
We had a ‘relaxed three lines’ and eight of us supported the amendment, which to my surprise was only defeated by sixty-eight votes … Stonewall had somehow acquired the legal advice given to Nick Soames which said he’s likely to lose in the European Court of Human Rights in three to four years’ time. I wonder if everyone realised how significant that will be.
