Although
homosexuality was declassified as a mental disorder more
than 30 years ago, a Pentagon document still regards
it as such. Discovered by the Center for the Study of
Sexual Minorities in the Military earlier this month,
the document outlining retirement and other discharge
policies for service members lists homosexuality as a
defect along with mental retardation and personality
disorders, the Associated Press reports.
"The policy reflects the
[defense] department's continued misunderstanding
of homosexuality and makes it more difficult for gays
and lesbians to access mental health services," Nathaniel
Frank, senior research fellow at the University of
California center in Santa Barbara, told the AP. The
policy in question, called the Defense Department
Instruction, is the only Pentagon regulation that considers
homosexuality to be a mental disorder.
"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," U.S. representative Marty Meehan, D-Massachusetts,
told the AP. Nine Congress members sent a letter to
secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld yesterday asking
for a full review of all documents pertaining to homosexuality.
The American Psychiatric Association decided
homosexuality was not a disorder in 1973, and since
then all other major health and mental-health
organizations have followed suit. James H. Scully Jr., the
head of the APA, sent a letter to the Pentagon's chief
doctor informing him of that fact, according to the AP.
A Pentagon spokesperson told the AP that the
controversial document is being reviewed. (The
Advocate)
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