At long last things are afoot on the military front in New Zealand.
From today's paper, without permission, all typos mine:

---<begin article>---
ARMED FORCES DROP HOMOSEXUAL BAN

Wellington (PA) - The armed forces have agreed to drop the ban on recruitment
and employment of homosexuals according to a leaked paper prepared for
Government MPs.
        The paper, prepared by the Minister of Defence, Mr Cooper, was given to
journalists yesterday by the New Zealand AIDS Foundation. A spokesman for Mr
Cooper confirmed it as genuine, but said it had not yet gone to caucus.
        In the paper Mr Cooper said the Defence Force was willing to comply
with proposed human rights legislation banning discrimination on the basis of
sexual orientation.
        Mr cooper said the Minister of Justice, Mr Graham, agreed with the
Chief of Defence Force, Vice-admiral Somerford Teagle, that current policy
should be changed to "prohibit discrimination on the grounds of sexual
orientation".
        However, in order to maintain necessary dicipline, he had also agreed
that the Defence chief should be able to dismiss personnel whose sexual
behavior was "incompatible with the maintenance of good order within the NZDF
or brings the NZDF into disrepute".
        The director of the AIDS Foundation, Mr Warren Lindberg, said the
foundation was delighted with the way Defence had approached both sexual
orientation and HIV/AIDS.
        Mr Cooper said the NZDF had grave concerns for the operational
efficiency of the armed forces if it was not able to use its own judgement to
deal with personnel with AIDS or hepatitis B.
        The nature of military service meant there was a greater risk of
inadvertent transmission of those diseases through unscreened blood
transfusions than there would be in the general community.
        "Until replacements for blood are available, especially in combat
conditions, every service person is a potential blood doner for another without
laboratory backup."
        As a result Mr Graham had agreed that the forces be exempt from
provisions in the Human Rights Bill banning discrimination against personnel
"having in their body organisms that might cause disease".
        Mr Graham has said he expected to introduce the Bill to Parliament
before Christmas.
---<end article>---

I have one comment regarding the HIV/AIDS concerns. Surely, why not post
such personnel to non-combat situations -  even the military needs its supply
of paper shufflers, don't fling them out on their ears!

Rog.
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