Gay air force
The first openly-gay service member fought the Air Force to a standstill
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Leonard Matlovich joined the Atmosphere Force in 1963. He served three tours in Vietnam, volunteering for all of them. The son of an Atmosphere Force Chief, his service record was nothing short of exemplary. The only obstacle was that Matlovich was gay in the military at a time when discrimination was approved practice.
Leonard Matlovich enlisting in the U.S. Air Power, CMSgt Matlovich by his side. (leonardmatlovich.com)
Matlovich might seem appreciate an anomaly by today’s standards. He was a conservative Republican and a staunch Catholic who hated the reforms of Vatican II. He even converted to Mormonism later in his service.
In 1966, he received an Wind Force Commendation Medal for bravery during a mortar charge. He personally ran to the ground perimeter to bolster the defenses there and help attend to the wounded.
He was groundbreaking and dedicated. An electrician, he came up with a nighttime lighting system for base perimeters that i
The U.S. military has made no affirmative effort to identify and revisit cases where service members were convicted of crimes and saddled with felony records for being involved in same-sex relationships, a CBS News Investigation has found.
"There are thousands that contain been incarcerated for their sexuality" over the years, said Rachel VanLandingham, a law professor who spent 24 years in the Air Force and is now the president of a group dedicated to improving fairness in the military justice system. "If they cared enough, they could go through the records."
Identifying the thousands of cases has posed an immense challenge, VanLandingham said, because of the wide variation in charges employed to compel gay and lesbian service members out of the military. Before the 2011 repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" — the policy that barred them from serving openly — there was no single charge used by U.S. military courts to expel gay men and women from the service.
Article 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice directly criminalized homosexual activity by outlawing "unnatural carnal copulation," while other statutes like "conduct unbecoming an officer," "in
Leonard Matlovich
Episode Notes
When Leonard Matlovich was thrown out of the Air Force for being gay, he sued for reinstatement. It was 1975 and it was the first case of its kind. Hear the LGBTQ rights pioneer—and startlingly frank one-time racist—in conversation with Studs Terkel.
Episode first published December 24, 2020.
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Learn more about Leonard Matlovich onthis website dedicated to his memory and in this tribute video.
Matlovich enlisted in the U.S. Gas Force in 1963. After 12 years of service, he purposely outed himself, inspired and guided by gay rights pioneer Frank Kameny, who had been looking for a examine court case to test the military’s ban on homosexuals. Learn more about Kameny in this episode from Making Gay History’s first season.
Matlovich declared his homosexuality to his commanding officer in a letter he hand-delivered on March 6, 1975; you can browse it below.
Matlovich’s case adv garnered national attention. Scan early New York Times coverage here and watch Matlovich’s first televised interview from May 26, 1975, here. On Sep
War heroes and a 'gay' plane are among images flagged for removal in Pentagon’s DEI purge
WASHINGTON — References to a World War II Medal of Honor recipient, the Enola Gay aircraft that dropped an atomic bomb on Japan and the first women to pass Marine infantry training are among the tens of thousands of photos and online posts marked for deletion as the Defense Department works to purge diversity, equity and inclusion content, according to a database obtained by The Associated Press.
The database, which was confirmed by U.S. officials and published by AP, includes more than 26,000 images that contain been flagged for removal across every military branch. But the eventual total could be much higher.
One official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details that have not been made public, said the purge could delete as many as 100,000 images or posts in total, when considering social media pages and other websites that are also being culled for DEI content. The official said it’s not clear if the database has been finalized.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had given the military until Wednesday to remove content that highlights diversity tries in its ranks