Gay pride groups appear at U.S. military academies

In the six months since the repeal of the U.S. military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, many of the most prestigious military institutions in the country are adding a student group to their club rosters that they had never seen before: gay pride groups.

(Active-duty troops and veterans march in the San Diego gay pride parade last July.)

For nearly 17 years, gay and lesbian soldiers were expected to deny their sexuality under threat of dismissal as part of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” With the repeal of the rule on September 20, 2011, a new era began for homosexual members of the armed forces.

But what about the young cadets preparing to enter their ranks, studying in the nation’s top military academies?

In December, a group of students at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut, formed a group called the Spectrum Diversity Council, to serve as a gay-straight alliance on campus.

The night before “don’t ask, don’t tell” ended, cadets at Norwich University, the nation’s oldest private military academy, held the first meeting of the school’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning and Allies Club.

These clubs are school-sanctioned, and their numbers are growing, according to cadets and school officials.

Even at the United States Military Academy at West Point, cadets are forming their own Spectrum student group.

As one of the nation’s five federal service academies, The U.S. Coast Guard Academy follows the same rules as the U.S. military, and up until recently this meant “don’t ask, don’t tell” was a rule. Even before the repeal, First Class Cadets Kelli Normoyle and Chip Hall were among students at the academy who met with school officials to discuss what might happen if “don’t ask, don’t tell” were repealed.

“No one was allowed to ‘come out’ in the DADT Working Group,” Normoyle said, but it was an unspoken secret that many of the members of the group were gay.

Read more of this story by CNN reporter Chris Boyette, at CNN.com

5 comments
  1. why: if men in with an artificial amuont of power have a standing army, they will use it. Politicians call the shots on who soldiers go to kill, Xavier. Politicians are invariably not noble, they are not wise, and they are not prudent. That is why the Founding Fathers wanted a militia. They would only be a defensive force, because they have no interest in going off to war. Politicians and professional soldiers do not want to lose their jobs. Citizens have their own, separate jobs. They stand to lose everything in the face of an invasion. There is nothing the military is doing, or can do to prevent any other people from attacking the U.S., like the Saudis (not Iraqis) did on 9/11. There was nothing they could do the first time, either. As Michael Scheuer and Bin Laden said, their presence overseas was the motivating factor for the attacks in the first place. They don’t hate “us” because “we’re” free. They hate the United State military and political presence, and I don’t blame them for that. I blame them for killing civilians, however. Would a militia be able to defend Americans against a full-scale nuclear attack? No, but neither could any United State ground troops of any MOS. It seems as though the shepherd and shopkeeper Afghanis are doing a pretty decent job at driving out their third modern military in a little over a century. If a society cannot defend itself without taking money from non-violent people by force or threat of force, or from forcing people to fight for them by threatening them with imprisonment or execution [the draft, which we do not currently have, but they do threaten current “volunteers” with prison and execution if they decide to quit] then that society has forfeited its right to continue to exist. If achieving one’s end requires the use of evil means, then one’s end may not be morally achieved.

  2. It is about time that the men and women that fight for my freedom to be who i am can finally be their true selves!

  3. To be honest I was hoping to see a post that announced with the repeal of DADT, that some hot servicemen were gonna be getting serviced on an upcoming video, but this article is nice as well. Thanks for sharing.~

  4. It is really nice to see this country evolve and become more accepting. When I was in the military 30 years ago I would never have thought this would ever be possible. In 30 years all this will just be a thing of the past that everyone will wonder why it was an issue to begin with.

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