Navy Said it Wasn't Punishment...
In 1992 LTJG Tracy Thorne said he was gay to a national TV audience. Unfortunately, at this time in our countries history gays could not serve in the military. Talking to the media about his homosexual preference while on active duty 20 years ago shouldn't disqualify him to sit on the bench today. I actually believe fighting for what you think is right, regardless of the consequences, is a quality we should all aspire to.
Society changes slowly. For example, Galileo was found guilty of heresy in 1633 for supporting Copernican astronomy. He spent the last nine years of his life under house arrest for something that he knew to be true via his own eyes.
In 1992 I didn’t have an opinion on gays serving. I knew gays served and the policy at that time was pretty straightforward. You're gay, you're out. I would NOW argue the regulation that prohibited gays from serving was fundamentally wrong. Like Galileo, the LTJG Thornes of this world who knew the regulation to be wrong, stood up to be heard and paid a heavy price twenty years ago and again last Tuesday.
LTJG Thorne likely didn’t know that there were roughly 40,000 active duty gays serving in 1992. But he did know that speaking out on national TV was a violation of the UCMJ Article 133, Conduct Unbecoming an Officer. The beef is this showed poor leadership and decision-making skills when he opted to "come out" on national television. I would argue, based on what I read in the Board of Inquiry transcript, that he was an outstanding officer, an up-and-coming leader, had a strong moral compass and was doing what history will one day show to be in the highest tradition of the naval service.
One thing that keeps rattling in my mind from reading the Board of Inquiry transcript is this: By 1992, no other major organization in the US other than the US Military was actively discriminating against gays for just being gay. If it wasn’t for service members like LTJG Thorne, I’m certain there would still be a ban on gays in the military, who now and have always numbered in the tens of thousands.
Research to back up the 40,000 gays in the military:
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004598.html
http://www.urban.org/uploadedPDF/411069_GayLesbianMilitary.pdf
LTJG Thorne's Board of Inquiry transcript:
http://dont.stanford.edu/cases/thorne/thornbi1.pdf
AFTER THOUGHTS
I can't think of anyone better to make the case that LTJG Thorne was acting in the highest tradition of the Naval Service than Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
When asked why gays should be allowed to openly serve he said "I have served with homosexuals since 1968," "No matter how I look at the issue, I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens." "For me, it comes down to integrity – theirs as individuals and ours as an institution." Admiral Mullen retired a week later and when asked why he spoke out against the ban on gays he said he did it for reasons of conscience.
LTJG Thorne wasn't a radical making a point. He was a young (STUPID) naval officer who came to the realization he was gay and spoke out against a policy he knew to be fundamentally wrong. That he did so while still serving is technically a violation of the UCMJ, but there are times when violating the UCMJ is exactly what leadership requires. The two Langley F-22 Raptor pilots technically violated the UCMJ when they went on 60 minutes saying they were being persecuted for refusing to fly a plane they knew to be unsafe. They did what they did because it needed to be done. I would argue LTJG Throne was doing something that needed to be done too.
It's important to note that just eighteen months after LTJG Thorne was honorably discharged, Don't Ask Don't Tell became law. Although over 14,000+ service members were forcible removed from the military under DADT it served as an important transition to the September 20, 2011 lifting of the gay service ban.
