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Well, Here Comes the Wave, Carrying Lying Sharks
07/09/2003

The effects of the Supreme Court's Lawrence decision are already being felt:

LTC Steve Loomis, a decorated Vietnam combat veteran and recipient of the Purple Heart, filed suit late yesterday with the U.S. Court of Federal Claims challenging the constitutionality of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and based on the recent U.S. Supreme Court opinion in Lawrence v. Texas which declared that the Texas sodomy statute violated the United State's Constitution's guarantee of a right to privacy. LTC Loomis is seeking to reverse his 1997 discharge from the United States Army.

Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN), which represented LTC Loomis during his initial discharge proceedings, noted that his case is the first of several likely to be filed in the wake of Lawrence. "Lawrence has a direct impact on the federal sodomy statute and the military's gay ban," said SLDN Executive Director C. Dixon Osburn. "Under 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell,' the federal government regularly intrudes in the most personal aspects of our lives. That is wrong and it is time for the government to change." ...

The Army based its discharge on a videotape seized during an arson investigation. An arsonist set fire to LTC Loomis' home in 1996. Civilian authorities investigating the arson found the videotape, which depicts LTC Loomis in private adult consensual sexual conduct, and handed it over to Army officials. The Army used the videotape as the basis for discharge, ending the decorated veteran's distinguished career. The Army provided LTC Loomis no assistance in responding to the tragedy of losing his home or possessions.

I've italicized the instance of the phrase that is about to shake American society to its core. But something about this version of the story just seemed off — something to do with the apparent surety and lack of compassion (for lack of a better word) with which Loomis was discharged. So, I googled him, and found this from a 1997 CNN report that further makes the manner of the discharge, even if the "don't ask, don't tell" policy tied the administrators' hands, seem unfair:

"In my case, it was private relations with another soldier, off-post, off-duty, not in my chain of command, and they say conduct unbecoming -- read that 'sodomy,'" Loomis said. "But how many single soldiers or married soldiers do exactly the same thing? And how many of them have it held against them?"

But what was that "same thing"? Loomis tells us how we should read the official reason for his dismissal ("conduct unbecoming"), and the army did seem a bit harsh if he was simply having a little consensual fun. And what was the arson thing all about? Well, a hard-to-find WaPo article certainly clears things up:

The board of inquiry concluded further last December that some of the homosexual sex involved "force, coercion or intimidation" -- a finding Loomis vigorously protested, attributing it to the inexperience of Army investigators who viewed the confiscated videotape. ...

The fire was set by an Army private, Michael A. Burdette, who had met Loomis the year before and had posed for nude photos in Loomis's house. Desperate to retrieve the photos but unable to find them after breaking into Loomis's house, Burdette started the fire in hopes of destroying the pictures, according to Army records. Burdette was discharged from the Army in January after pleading guilty in state court to arson.

The fire marshal who came across the incriminating videotape in a camera on the scene has testified that he seized it thinking it might show the arsonist igniting the house. But Burdette does not appear in the tape. Loomis and his supporters argued use of the tape as evidence was improper, but Army officials at every stage of appeal affirmed its inclusion.

Army investigators did not pursue the three men pictured with Loomis, who has since identified them all as soldiers. ...

So, in a nutshell, the "private adult consensual sexual conduct" in which the 50-year-old officer engaged — that must be the "same thing" done by unknown numbers of "single soldiers or married soldiers" — was having sex that, to the uninitiated, appeared to involve "force, coercion or intimidation" with three fellow soldiers as well as taking nude photos of a young private. And that's not "conduct unbecoming"? That ought to be acceptable in the environment that faces members of the United States military?

The idea that the army's hands ought to be tied in such cases because it is all "private adult consensual sexual conduct" is insane! Of course, once the story's gotten the full glossing treatment of the mainstream media, almost the opposite seems to be the case.

In the coming cultural battles, we're going to have to be prepared to shine a lot of light on these instances of "oppression" and "bigotry." And we're going to have to become (or remain) willing to stand up and say such things as will make Andrew Sullivan blush — for example: "This is subversive!"

Posted by Justin Katz @ 12:49 AM EST