Homos in the UK Army 2
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.
New Parliament
As Currie argued, the ban on homosexual personnel was the only blanket ban in the armed forces with heterosexual ‘misconduct, drug taking, alcoholism, bullying and even serious criminal convictions … treated as discretionary disciplinary matters.
Despite efforts to give off a veneer of evidence-led policy, the wider ban, she concluded, was ‘prejudice, pure and simple, and as such it is offensive, impractical and expensive’. It was a policy to the armed forces’ ‘detriment and our country’s shame’.
The election of a new Labour government in May 1997 did little to immediately alter things. ‘This is a sensitive issue, Defence Secretary, George Robertson, told Prime Minister Tony Blair, in October 1997, and ‘we have to balance expectations in some quarters … against the real concerns of many of those in the Armed Forces and the need to maintain their combat effectiveness’.
The Labour party’s policy on homosexuality in the armed forces should be viewed against a backdrop of its careful balancing act on homosexuality generally. Labour had, before the 1997 election, worried about talking too much about LGBT rights ‘for fear of alienating middle England’ even if it had indicated that it was committed to gay rights.
The policy on the armed forces should be placed against a backdrop of cautious change on LGBT issues generally; efforts to repeal the infamous Clause 28, preventing the ‘promotion of homosexuality’, in England and Wales started in 2000, and the equalisation of the age of consent, despite efforts to stall it in the Lords, was passed into law in 2001.
Labour’s policy on the armed forces ban was just as cautious; in 1995, it had suggested a Commission, including the service chiefs, to review policy considering experience in NATO and Commonwealth armed forces.
During a debate on the Armed Forces Bill, Dr. John Reid, then a shadow defence spokesperson, believed that, whilst a ‘sensitive subject’ the arguments for change did not, in his view, ‘overcome both the operational reduction in effectiveness and the case for privacy for heterosexuals’.
Blair, then leader of the opposition, had also taken a cautious approach and had agreed Labour MPs should have a free vote on the May 1996 cross-party amendment to the Armed Forces Bill, a gesture negated by the government issuing a three-line whip against the amendment.
Blair had been advised there were ‘no votes’ in lifting the ban, fearing a repeat of the criticism of President Clinton in the US. A source close to Blair feared change would be ‘a political liability’, whilst Labour had made ‘no specific manifesto commitment’ to change policy, even if it was committed to a ‘review’.
Labour’s election victory saw little change, at least in public. Whilst the new Defence Secretary, Robertson, intended a free vote in future, Labour’s approach remained a fudge.
Although maintaining a line that a ban would be in place for the foreseeable future, internal papers released under FOI suggest doubts that the policy could be maintained in the long run.
The Government would, Reid, now Minister of State for the Armed Forces, wrote in June 1997, ‘form a view on the weight of the evidence’, starting with the previous position supporting the policy of exclusion, whilst cautiously seeking a way forward. The official line in Parliament remained, Robertson told the Prime Minister, that:
The issue of homosexuality in the Armed Forces is reviewed as a matter of course in every Parliament. As and when a review is required in the new Parliament the Government will form a view on the weight of the evidence, taking account of the UK’s laws … and [those] of the Armed Forces.
The Government will start with the position agreed in the last Parliament, which supported the policy of excluding homosexuals from the Services, and will look in detail at the findings of the detailed review of the policy which was undertaken by [the Ministry of Defence] in 1995/6. Ministers will then seek to establish the way forward in consultation with the Chiefs of Staff.
Robertson maintained ‘for the time being at least, we should continue with that line’. The policy would be reviewed within the lifetime of the Parliament, and prior to future discussions on a future Armed Forces Bill, with the issue now judged to be ‘a matter of policy and not one of Service law’.
The documents suggest there was a public versus private line, only hinted at in newspaper reports. It had been suggested that Robertson, supported by Reid, was ‘anxious’ for change, yet, despite support from some in Cabinet, he was opposed by ‘senior Navy officers.
] The briefing to journalists was correct; in October 1998, Reid’s personal view seems to have been that it was only a question of when, not if, policy would change, yet he would continue to use the official line in ‘Parliament and public’.
Reid was not enthusiastic for a new HPAT report and believed a Parliamentary vote would result in a ‘large majority’ for change, with his personal view favouring a ‘policy based on inclusivity and a code of conduct’.
LGBT campaign group Stonewall
There was some limited change in policy, however. Although the 1991 review of the Armed Force Bill maintained that homosexuality was incompatible with the armed services—reaffirming reviews in 1981 and 1986—it recommended the end to the prosecution of same sex acts which under civil law were not illegal.
As the LGBT campaign group Stonewall made clear, this impinged on ‘basic human rights. The Select Committee agreed; it concluded that although homosexuality would remain unacceptable in the services, there would, in future, be no justification in continuing to punish personnel for acts that were not subject to civilian law, a conclusion accepted by the government.
In June 1992, the Minister of State for Defence Procurement, Jonathan Aitken, told MPs, ‘the special provisions of section 1(5) of the Sexual Offences Act 1967 should not apply in future’, making it clear that this was simply a ‘sensible measure of decriminalisation, whose purpose is to tidy up the differences between military and civilian law.
# It is not intended to alter the present disciplinary climate of service life’, with Section 1(5) later repealed under the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. Discharge using the SNLR process continued to be used.
If Ministers and the armed forces believed that was the end of the matter, they were mistaken. As Aitken had made clear, change was only seen as a means of removing a longstanding anomaly between civilian and military law, not, as others saw, as the start of a wider liberalisation.
Nonetheless, the 1992 update was something of a fudge. On the one hand, it maintained the line that the armed forces should, in Aitken’s words, ‘not be required to accept homosexuals’, yet, for others, it opened the door for further liberalisation.
This was not the view taken by the MOD; in an internal memorandum in March, it was suggested that the end to civil prosecution was ‘a relatively small price to pay for the important statement from the Select Committee that it endorses the Services’ overall policy against homosexuality’. Change could be ‘positively presented’ to oppose wider change.
Troubled Underwood
For Commander Jill Stellingworth, in the Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRENS), the policy was justified as most of the population saw the services as a ‘young, robust, heterosexual’ community, where parents sought assurance ‘their sons and daughters are properly looked after’.
Until broader society changed, ‘we must’, wrote Stelling worth, ‘respect the majority view and not undermine a parent’s confidence in the society in which their son or daughter will be serving’.
Released documents under FOI show that figures within the Ministry of Defence argued for the department to go on the offensive rather than sit and await policy changes. For Wing Commander Timothy Underwood, then responsible for internal RAF disciplinary policy, more needed to be done to ‘keep the homosexual lobby at bay’.
It troubled Underwood that the so-called ‘lobby’ had succeeded in turning public opinion in ‘their favour’, maintaining that the basis of policy across the forces was ‘that homosexuality is an abnormality of character’ setting out the following ‘undesirable effects’ on society in words that, which—whilst uncomfortable today—are worthy of full quotation:
It offends the natural laws and if openly embraced, undermines the whole fabric of our society. Most of the population are heterosexual and do not wish to adopt the mores of the homosexual.
Heterosexuals are disturbed and feel threated by homosexuals, integration is therefore not welcomed and can be damaging to the cohesiveness of normally orientated groups.
Homosexuals are coercive and frequently attempt to inveigle others, usually the young and the impressionable, to participate in their wholesome practices.
Whether acceptable or not, homosexual practices have been shown to spread AIDS, and like drug and alcohol addition, they are damaging to the health of society.
For Underwood, a strong ‘moral stand’ was necessary, and he questioned wider efforts to bring service law into line with society which had, in his view, ‘sent the wrong signals’ and giving the impression that legal change opened the door for the recruitment from the LGBT community.
‘In summary … we must’, Underwood finished, ‘move from the defensive to the offensive and state unequivocally that there is no place for homosexuals in the Armed Forces’. Such comments were admittedly at the extreme end of the MOD’s line, but, overall, the position of the department remained one of defending the ‘rights of a heterosexual serviceman or woman’.
The public line, as set out in an MOD defensive brief, was that the current line was not a ‘moral judgement’, but a ‘practical one’ which focused on the ‘efficient and effective’ running of the armed forces and the ‘maintenance of discipline and morale’. Homosexuality posed, therefore, a threat to unit cohesion.
Currie’s motivation
Such views met opposition from across the political divide. In a personal letter to Aitkin, the feminist and LGBT campaigner Jane Cholmeley asked why the MOD’s stance was allowed when ‘it is perfectly acceptable to have [homosexuals] in the Cabinet?’
In June 1992, Labour MP Allan Rogers pointed out that heterosexual activity also threatened discipline whether in ‘an office, a factory, of the House of Commons’. Rogers said the blanket policy, in his view, was ‘wrong’.
There were also a growing number of Conservative MPs opposed to the MOD’s line. The department’s line was contradicted by public polling, argued Conservative MP, Robert Hayward, which suggested the MOD should not be a ‘special category’.
Hayward was joined by fellow Conservative MP Edwina Currie, who, whilst welcoming the fact that personnel would no longer be charged for offences that were not illegal in civilian life, questioned why the armed forces even maintained a ban that lost a large number of ‘good soldiers’, including 78 gay or lesbian military personnel in 1990, and an estimated 300 lesbians between 1987 and 1989.
Currie’s motivation stemmed, she later recalls, from wider efforts to removal stigmas and discrimination. ‘I was’, she recalls, ‘involved with an organisation called TORCHE (Tory Campaign for Homosexual Equality) which worked closely with Stonewall and our colleagues across the political parties’, the intended aim being the erosion of ‘Clause 28 (on the teaching of homosexuality in schools) but on my suggestion we went for something much bigger, personal choice and consent (easier to sell to Tories)’.
In June 1993, Currie again attacked policy as ‘ludicrous’, maintaining the line during a meeting with Lord Cranborne, the Parliamentary the Under-Secretary of State for Defence.
If anything, the RAF’s Director of Personnel Services, Air Commadore H.W. Hall, reflected, the 1991 decision emboldened ‘Homosexual lobby groups’ into thinking the services would ‘embrace homosexuals. The time had come for an unambiguous tri-service statement.
If lobbying by MPs and pressure groups was an issue, the international dimension was another factor. Following a review of policy in 1992, the Australian government abandoned its ban on homosexuality in the forces, pushed by the view that the defence forces would ‘have to keep in step with society and the sooner this was done the better’.
A new policy focused on general behaviour that would likely to undermine morale, public standing and discipline, rather than sexual orientation itself. The Canadian armed forces ended its longstanding policy (CFAO 19–20) in the same year after legal action. New Zealand followed shortly afterwards. By July 1993, the US Department of Defence issued new guidance on homosexuality, the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ (DADT) policy.
Whilst homosexuality remained a bar to military service, with overt instances subject to investigation by commanders, those serving would not be asked or required to reveal their sexual orientation.
The policy was, one US study points out, an attempt by the US government to compromise between the wider pressure to liberalise whilst maintaining the traditional line that homosexuality was a bar to service, yet would, in future, see an increase in service personnel discharged for homosexuality.
Within the MOD, DADT was viewed as a successful compromise, one that hinged on homosexual conduct rather than implied sexual orientation. Nevertheless, it was acknowledged that US policy would have a ‘spin off’ effect on UK policy, with activist groups ‘encouraged’ to push for a complete overhaul.
Morale and effectiveness
As before, released documents under FOI show the MOD wanted aggressive pushback against liberalisation. ‘If we don’t want homosexuals in the forces’, it was argued in August 1993, ‘we must adopt a more robust stance’. A year later, after a tri-service working party tried to standardise policy, the ‘robust’ approach demanded by many was set out as:
Homosexuality, whether male or female, is considered incompatible with service in the Armed Forces. This is not only because of the close physical conditions in which personnel often must live and work, but also because homosexual behaviour can cause offense, polarise relationships, induce ill-discipline, and therefore damage morale and unit effectiveness.
If individuals admit to being homosexual while serving and their Commanding Office judges that this admission is well founded, they will be required to leave the Services. The Armed Forces’ policy was supported by the Select Committee of the Armed Forces’
Bill in 1991 who stated in their report they were not persuaded that the time has come to require the Armed Forces to accept homosexuals or homosexual activity. However, the Committee recommended, and MOD accepted, that homosexual activity of a kind that is legal in civilian law should not constitute an offense under Service Law.
Internal factors increasingly posed challenges to the MOD’s line. In November 1994, Edmund Hall, who had been removed from the Royal Navy in 1988, having revealed his sexuality ‘after a great deal of soul searching’, argued to Conservative MP, Bernard Jenkin, that the MOD’s line was costly and only removed personnel with ‘outstanding records’.
He pointed out that there was ‘no evidence’ that homosexuality caused disciplinary issues. Jenkin himself admitted to Nicolas Soames, Minister of State for the Armed Forces, he had ‘sympathy’ for this point of view.
Others added their own voice; another advocate of liberalisation was John Latto Farquharson Buist, or Ian, the first senior civil servant to openly declare his homosexuality, ending his career in 1990 as an Under-Secretary in the FCO, who campaigned on behalf of the Campaign for Homosexual Equality (CHE).
The response to these activities remained the same; although Buist’s letter cannot be found, a brief prepared by Major P.E.W. Smith, responsible for protective security, questioned his argument that the transition in the Canadian and Australian forces had gone ‘smoothly’ whilst writing disparagingly about their capability.
For Smith, the British armed forces had been in action ‘almost constantly’ and homosexuality threatened, in his view, ‘traditional, mutual regard, shared habits and beliefs and social unity’ characterising military life. Whereas the armed forces were a ‘community of cohesion, honour, integrity and loyalty’, homosexuality promoted ‘individualism, self-interest and self-fulfilment’.
There were issues closer to home. In Spring 1995, the MOD’s line faced a judicial review, brought by four former service personnel—Duncan Lustig-Prean, John Beckett, Jeanette Smith and Graeme Grady—who had been discharged. All had exemplary records, and promising careers ahead of them, and there was little to suggest that their sexuality had impacted their work.
The appeal, heard in June, revolved around whether the blanket ban on homosexuality was irrational, in breach of the European Court of Human Rights and European directives in equal treatment.
By contrast, the argument, put before the court by Vice Chief of the Defence Staff, Sir John Willis, was that homosexuality ‘undermines the good order and discipline necessary for military effectiveness’. This was not, he said, a ‘moral judgement, but a practical assessment of the implications of homosexual orientation on military life’ based around three key areas.
Morale and effectiveness were a significant factor as ‘personnel can be called upon to serve anywhere in the world at short notice’, and, if broken, would be difficult to remedy. Recruitment would also suffer, it was argued, 35 per cent of new recruits to the Armed Forces are aged under 18 below the age of consent for homosexual sex (then 21), with trust of ‘young people to join the Armed Forces, and their parents to permit them to join’ being damaged, whilst there would be long-term issues linked to communal living in ‘predominantly single-sex communities’.
Although the court ruled that the central argument—that the ban was in place to protect operational efficiency—could not be deemed irrational, the case was something of a pyrrhic victory. In his summary, Lord Justice Simon Brown concluded the ‘tide of history is against the [MOD].
The views of historian
Prejudices are breaking down; old barriers are being removed. It seems to me improbably, whatever this court may say, that the existing policy cannot survive much longer’. The applicants took the case to the Court of Appeal, where the case was dismissed.
Nevertheless, an internal MOD assessment acknowledged that the arguments put forward by Willis and the MOD had limitations; it rested on little evidence, whereas the arguments for change had ‘considerable cogency’ with a warning that ‘social attitudes and concerns are constantly evolving’.
The real issue for the MOD was that, as another internal view made clear, it was based on ‘no hard evidence’ and ‘based solely on opinion and perceptions of society, not substantiated by solid facts.
The question was what the MOD would do next? ‘Following the Judicial Review’, the Army’s Director of Personal Services, Brigadier I.H. McNeil, wrote, ‘we may have won a battle but certainly not the war’.
Indeed, McNeil forecast that despite a short-term win, the issue would not go away, and the prospect of a Labour government would, in future, raise prospects of a ‘compulsory change’.
‘Unfortunately, as much as we may find it morally and emotionally repugnant’, Major Mac Linaker, writing on behalf of the Army’s Director of Manning, wrote, ‘we must face the reality that we may well lose the battle’.
It was clear, according to internal MOD legal advice, that, overall, the stance was ‘doomed to die an early death and … based on the supposition of prejudice among forces’ personnel’. If the MOD wanted to maintain policy, they were warned to gather ‘evidence’ and undertake a review of policy.
There were voices for moderation, however; weighing up the pros and cons to a change, Major P.D. Moody, writing on personnel policy generally, recommended the complete removal of the ban, bringing policy in line with equal opportunities legislation, and allowing change to avoid ‘previously discharged homosexuals from being able to seek compensation from the MOD’.
Moody’s paper rightly pointed out that change elsewhere had not brought negative effects, though his views were, it seems, in the minority, and led one official to write ‘NO’.
Broadly, the June judicial review established the services needed a joint approach to the problem and to ‘produce better “evidence”’ to resist a force change, as well as study foreign militaries.
By July, it has been agreed by Soames, still Minister of State for the Armed Forces, that a review would be carried out. This was not to be an impartial one, and external evidence—presumably evidence that raised doubts about MOD policy—was ruled out, in support of information ‘to be gathered from within the MOD in support of the current policy’, with the results presented to the Parliamentary Select Committee overseeing the Armed Forces Bill in 1995/6. Once again, it seems, despite wider evidence, the MOD was reluctant to change.
Just what a review would look like was another issue. The general policy lines were the subject of a ‘desk level’ paper within the MOD, drafted in July. This 16-page document sought to bring together the available evidence and maintained the line that the UK, alongside the US, was unique and stood-alone from other countries due to the tempo of combat operations.
The sexual predilections of Parliament’.
Reid’s view was that ‘discreet preparatory work’ on change was necessary, and that thinking should quickly move to how ‘future change … would be implemented’.
The private views of Ministers were, released records under FOI show, at odds with the services. Although there appears to have been a feeling of ‘reluctant acceptance that change’ was ‘inevitable’, discussions across all three services, carried out in July 1998, suggested that views had changed very little from HPAT. Generally, the opposition was rooted on discipline, resources, recruitment and retention and operational effectiveness.
One internal MOD paper concluded: ‘The Bottom Line. Forgive the pun! However, the question that needs to be asked is whether the nation wishes to have armed forces that can defend its interests successfully, or that simply reflect the sexual predilections of Parliament’.
The services would not volunteer change but recognised that it was ‘probably inevitable’ and better conducted on a tri-service basis. There was little appetite for a rerun of HPAT, with views in the Royal Navy still ‘unanimously opposed to change’ and ‘more extreme’.=
The Army maintained a similar line, and a new HPAT would produce ‘the same results; if anything views in the Army had hardened over the past two to three years’, possibly ‘as a result of experiences with the extension of employment opportunities for women’.
The latest proposed change was, it was suggested, a ‘step too far’. The same recruitment and discipline issues identified in HPAT would continue, and, it was argued, there was a ‘moral argument’ against imposing change, even along the lines of the US
‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’. It was the RAF that seemed to be the more pragmatic of the services; whilst, like the Navy and Army, it considered a re-run of HPAT impossible, US policy would be a preferred fallback position, though there was awareness that the subject should be handled ‘carefully’ to ‘avoid leaks and speculation that the policy was about to change’.
The then VCDS, Admiral Sir Peter Abbott, recognised that there was a need to ‘develop … thinking’, urging ‘discreet and low-key work … to look at options for possible changes to the policy, how any changes might be implemented, and what kind of ground rules might apply’.
As before, the wider context mattered, and Labour Ministers could not stand firm on present lines for one significant reason: Europe. By early 1997, the failure of earlier efforts to overturn the ban resulted in European legal action. In the first case, an ex-Royal Naval rating, Terence Perkins, took his case to the European Court of Justice (ECJ), alleging that his dismissal for homosexuality was discrimination, potentially opening the MOD for compensation.
The ECJ case essentially focused on whether sexual discrimination was permitted under the Equal Treatment Directive, and if the MOD’s arguments on military effectiveness were valid, with the case—for reasons not covered here—thrown out by 1999.
The second, brought by Lustig-Prean, Beckett, Smith and Grady, who had tried a judicial review in 1995, focused on whether UK policy contravened the right to respect of private life under Article 8 of the Human Rights Act.
The final judgement, delivered on 27 September 1999, was unanimous that the UK government breached Article 8, especially the services use of intrusive investigations to establish guilt.
The ECHR also dismissed the work of the HPAT team, which was based ‘solely on the negative attitudes of heterosexual personnel’, which could not, the ECHR ruled, justify investigations ‘any more than similar negative attitudes towards those of a different race, origin or colour’.
The ECHR also pointed out the issues of the blanket ban and, whilst accepting there would be difficulties implementing a change in policy, these ‘could be addressed by a strict code of conduct and disciplinary rules’.
The ruling finally brought change, yet, for the MOD, there was the issue of presentation. Although reservations remained, change was now ‘inevitable’, wrote Rear Admiral Peter Dunt, and Ministers had ‘accepted that ruling (as they must)’.
The ruling marked the suspension of discharges, though a recruitment ban remained until a new policy ‘based on a code of conduct equally applicable to heterosexual and homosexual personnel’ could be devised.
It was suggested that comparisons with the US system should be avoided, with initial reaction pushing for the ‘Australian model’, but a wide-ranging review was announced on 30 September. Within the MOD, it was recognised that change should be presented as ‘positive and mature’, a marked contrast to earlier views.
As one official noted, messaging needed to ‘strike a forward-looking tone’ with parallels to ‘presentation experience on race and gender issues. The main themes would be ‘concern, explanation, reassurance and firmness’.
