SEN. ROBERT KERREY'S (D-NE) FLOOR STATEMENT 7/15/93: Mr. President, I come to the floor this morning to discuss a decision the President is going to make in the next 24 hours, and that is whether to accept the recommendation made by the Secretary of Defense, Secretary Aspin, on the issue of homosexuals in the U.S. Armed Forces. Let me say first of all I recognize, at least in Nebraska, that people say that the economy is more important, the deficit is more important, the flood that is going on right now and the disaster that is occurring around the flood, is more important. I acknowledge that this issue is not very high on most people's charts. However, it is something that we must deal with. I have come to the floor today to talk a bit about this issue for the purpose of informing some of my colleagues as to what my own thoughts and feelings are, and perhaps providing a context within which others might make decisions. The central question is whether or not a homosexual man or homosexual woman is going to be allowed to serve this country, yes or no. Will they be allowed, if they are qualified in all other respects, to wear the uniform of the United States of America in the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine, Coast Guard -- will they be able to serve. It is critical as we begin this consideration to ask ourselves what is it that our Armed Forces do? What is their role? Their role is to defend America. it is a much different role than ours here in Congress, a much different role than someone working for the Environmental Protection Agency or for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Defense of the Nation has caused us to develop rather special considerations when we ask people whether or not they want to serve. We have very high standards, in short, Mr. President. And we ought not to lower those standards under any circumstances, in my judgement, in order to satisfy some economic or social or sometimes even political consideration. This is not a question of lowering standards. We have the Uniform Code of Military Justice in place to make sure that those who enter the Armed Forces understand that they are under a higher standard. Indeed, we have the Geneva Conventions, that the United States has led, which have the United States military saying that we are going to set a higher standards and an example for the world, in fact. Our military serves much more than merely to defend us. Our military serves as an organization that has the highest standards in the world. In addition, no one should suffer under the illusion that personnel policies do not matter. They do matter. The personnel policies of our military have and will have an impact upon our capacity to carry out our mission. They will determine whether or not we will be successful. They are not an irrelevant consideration. They are far more important, again, inside of the military than they are in any other organization. But, Mr. President, one of the arguments that I hear people use very often is that if we allow homosexuals in the military, that it will have an adverse effect upon unit morale. My research on this issue has taught me something, in fact, that I did not know before; that is, for the approximately 217 years since we have been organizing a military in this country to defend us and to gather our freedom, we have had not a policy based upon unit cohesion, but a policy based upon concerns for the individual. All of us who lived in the sixties, all of us who have watched our military policy in the seventies and eighties understand that. We have heard people come to the floor of this body and say, we need special legislation to provide compensation for an individual who we consider to have been wronged. Oliver North, in this particular instance, is the individual who comes to my mind. But all of us in our offices understand that we get requests from constituents who say, "We don't want our son or daughter to go to Desert Storm because they have a family consideration." Our policies have been individually centered. Yes, it matters that we have unit cohesion. All of us who have been in the military understand that when we enter a particular unit, we take pride in that unit. But the policies have us training as individuals, and the policies have been individually centered. Make no mistake about it. There is a great argument to be made to have personnel policies that emphasize unit cohesion, there is a great argument to be made that you ought to rotate as a unit, you ought to train as a unit, but if that is going to be our policy, Mr. President, all of us who hear from constituents who say they want individual exceptions made are going to have to say, no, we train as a unit, we have unit policy, you understand that, and we are going to have to abide by it. I make no apology for my own personal experience in the military. It caused me to drift toward the military point of view on this issue. I could not and still have some difficulty trying to find out how someone who is homosexual serves in a U.S. Navy SEAL team, an organization I participated in over 20 years ago. It is difficult for me to understand that. From my own personal experience with some of the extremists who ar out there arguing that the policy ought to be changed, I tended to lock up and say, "Well, let the ban remain." I am prepared, as a matter of fact, to say some of the extremists in ACT UP or Queer Nation ought to be permanently banned. If you want to have a stipulation that people who act in reprehensible and extreme fashion cannot meet the high standards of our military, I am prepared to accept that, in fact, Mr. President. I was drifting, in short, toward accepting the ban, the sort of status quo, saying, "Well, this is a relatively minor problem, why do anything about it?" It is a minor problem. I suspect there are no more than a few thousand openly homosexual people in the state of Nebraska. That is the way it is with civil rights issues. That is the way it is when you have a single individual who says the Government is doing something bad to me. It is easy to say you are just one small businessman, why should I intervene? You are just one working family who had a Government say you cannot have health care, why should I intervene? Just one person, for gosh sakes. I put together coalitions when I run for office. What is a couple thousand people, for gosh sakes, people hardly in the mainstream today? This is not the sort of thing that wins you applause lines, Mr. President, obviously, and it was easy for me to drift and say, "Let the status quo go, I have other things on my plate." Mr. President, General Schwarzkopf and Col. Fred Peck appeared before the Armed Services Committee not long ago. Colonel Peck did a remarkable thing. Colonel Peck presented to the American people in an unscripted presentation the fact that his own son was homosexual, which he had discovered a few days earlier. It was a very moving moment, Mr. President. In the midst of that moment, Colonel Peck said, "I still want the ban in place. I still do not want my son to serve in the U.S. Marine Corps," a corps that he had served in for 27 years. But why did he not want his son to be in there Was it unit cohesion? Was it the morale of the fighting forces of the U.S. Marine Corps? No, Mr. President. He said he was afraid for his son's life; that maybe he would be beaten up, maybe he would be hurt. I must tell you, Mr. President, in that moment, I said, "Time out." It is time for the military to change. This is not a social experiment, that Scott Peck should feel safe in the Marine Corps. it is one thing to say you are concerned about the fighting spirit of our forces. It is quite another to say that somehow you are afraid that your son might not survive the organization. I must tell you that I believe the capacity for tolerance inside our Armed Forces is much higher. I believe they have the ability to recognize that the quality that is most important to add to unit cohesion is reliability. When the bullets start, will the individual retreat, will they freeze up? Are they someone upon whom you can depend? Will they be there when you need them the most? Are they someone upon whom you can count when the chips are down? Will they lay down their life for you, if necessary? These are the values that are important. I must tell you, Mr. President, I had no experience with homosexuality when I was in the SEAL team, but in my own examination of the issue, I realized that if I had the No. 1 soldier, the No. 1 operator in our unit who we all regarded as the best to come to me today and say, "Senator, I'm homosexual," I would not conclude that he should be kicked out of SEAL team, that he should be kicked out of the Armed Forces. My own thinking is upside down, I must say, in all this arguing and fear that we have about tackling an issue that we know to be controversial. Another concern I hear raised very often is there is a national security concern. The whole policy has sort of changed over the years. It started off in the 1940's, when homosexuality was regarded as a mental illness. In the fifties, it was a national security issue. And in the sixties, when I was drafted, I do not remember anybody asking me if I was gay at the time. If there was a ban in place, I was not aware of it. But there was a ban in place, as it turns, as it turns out. It was just that the draft made it unnecessary to ask. It would be interesting, in fact, to bring back the draft today for a couple of months. I suspect some supporters and opponents might switch sides on this debate, if the requirement was that everyone serve in our Armed Forces, without exception. So the reason for the policy over the years has changed, but one of the things that remains to the present is this fear that somehow maybe national security is going to be compromised. For my colleagues' consideration on this issue, if you are using that argument, I called up the Central Intelligence Agency and asked them: "What would you do if somebody who was openly homosexual applied for a top security clearance?" They said that would not be a problem. I said, "What would you do if they were not openly homosexual, but you knew it and a background investigation determined it?" That is a problem, Mr. President. Then they are at risk. What that says to us is that if we are going to keep a ban in place, and acknowledge people are going to remain in the closet, then we have a security risk problem with those who are in the closet today in the military. Now I daresay, very few people are going to come down here and say that the military's policy ought to be to routinely screen and give polygraph tests from the top all the way down on an annual basis; certainly, we cannot trust the declaration made by an 18- year-old when they come in. If we are really concerned about national security, we ought to administer a polygraph test on an annual basis to determine whether or not someone has homosexual desire. I do not think anybody is going to propose that kind of personnel policy in the Armed Forces. I believe most of us would understand that that is a violation of civil rights; that that would, indeed, interrupt unit cohesion and unit morale. Mr. President, if there are Members of this body concerned that the national security of this Nation is going to be jeopardized as a result of perhaps having people compromised as a result of their sexual orientation, we cannot afford to have a policy then that says that they cannot tell. Disclosure should be the order; otherwise, I think, at least according to the Central Intelligence Agency's assessment of when they would give top security clearances, we would indeed be at risk. As I said at the beginning, I understand that this is not an issue that is high on anybody's list. But also I understand that rarely is the case. Some of the most important things I have done in the over 4 years, going on 5 years that I have served the people of Nebraska have been instances where I responded to a letter or a call from someone who had suffered an injury. As an amputee myself, I am called upon from time to time to talk to people who have suffered injuries like that. Some of the most important things that I have done is call somebody in the hospital or visit with them in the hospital and try to give them, not so much guidance, but some understanding that I care about them. That is not an act based upon some desire to put together, as I said, some coalition. That does not show up on an opinion poll. It never does. We cannot afford to allow any of our personnel policies, whether it is in the Congress or in the military, to be guided by intolerant behavior, whether that intolerant behavior is religious or otherwise. I believe it is time for the military to change its policies. I acknowledge that it is a traumatic change. I suspect that time will show it is not as traumatic as we, or at least some, are saying it is going to be. It is time for the military to change, and those Americans who want to serve their country, those Americans who say their sexual orientation is homosexual and want to serve their country, if they can satisfy all other requirements, if they meet all other standards, we should allow them to serve.