Pentagon Document Classifies Homosexuality as Mental Disorder

[ohmygoodness]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,200200,00.html

FoxNews/AP wrote:

Pentagon Document Classifies Homosexuality as Mental Disorder Monday, June 19, 2006

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.

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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.

Jesus fucking Murphy. What is wrong with some Americans?

[SVZ]

Time to dig Kinsey up

[Aella]

Damn, did I wake up in the 1950s again? I hate it when that happens!

[buttmunch]

Stupid asswipes.

[Mr. Authority]

Pfft yeah, Whever I fuck some guy in his ass I get depresses and want to kill myself afterwards. Sometimes I attempt to jump out of the window of my 3 story appartment. And if I can't go through with that, then I just go to the nearest alley and suck off the nearest guy because I'm so fucked up in the god damn head....

Or so the Pentagon want's everyone to beleive. Such a worthless "study".

[twitchy]

Originally Posted by Aella

Damn, did I wake up in the 1950s again? I hate it when that happens!

Gosh, golly and gee whiz! I think we all did. How keen!

[Grimmlok]

That's swell. Let's all go down to the malt shop and kick some commie pinko ass!

[Sojiita]

Oh for fuck's sake..we really are going to hell in a handbasket in this neocon-stricken country!

[Bullets In My TuTu]

What a crock of ****. What happened to don't ask don't tell? Oh that's right, not good enough so let's re-classify being gay as having a mental or personality disorder and get them out that way. Don't these asswipes have anything better to do than stick their big noses into other peoples' bedrooms? I guess not.

[Grimmlok]

Why any self respecting homosexual would willingly join the army to fight for a country that makes him ride in the back of the bus is beyond me.

[twitchy]

Just reminded me.

[Sojiita]

Does this mean that *someone..some certain gay guy* could kill Bush and plead insanity and possibly get away with it?(at least getting a nice room at a fairly decent psychiatric institute rather than a cell in max. security or the electric chair)????

[Grimmlok]

I think the Pentagon needs a nice fat cock up its ass.

[MrsMarsters]

I think that rodent conda whatever does.