Frontlines: The Latest from OutServe-SLDN

USA Today: Military Tried to Recruit Gays

Last week, SLDN's communications associate, Jason Knight, came to me with a print-out of pages from GLEE.com, an online LGBT community. At first, I was a little curious about why my staff was cruising online during work hours . . . and then I saw what he had found. The United States military was, in fact, recruiting on the site . . . despite "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." I immediately reached out to Andrea Stone at USA Today, a reporter who has covered us many times and who, I knew, would have a lot of fun with the story. This morning, the news made the front page of the paper. From Andrea's story: The Army, Navy and Air Force unwittingly advertised for recruits on a website for gays, who are barred from military service if they are open about their sexual orientation. When informed Tuesday by USA TODAY that they were advertising on GLEE.com, a networking website for gay professionals, recruiters expressed surprise and said they would remove the job listings. "This is the first I've heard about it," said Maj. Michael Baptista, advertising branch chief for the Army National Guard, which will spend $6.5 million on Internet recruiting this year. "We didn't knowingly advertise on that particular website," which he said does not "meet the moral standards" of the military. . . . Most of the military jobs posted were hard-to-fill positions requiring advanced training, although some ads sought to fill core combat slots at a time when the Iraq war has challenged recruiters to meet goals. They included: •Thousands of Navy openings for doctors, dentists, intelligence analysts, Arabic translators and others. •Hundreds of Air Force jobs for optometrists, social workers, physician's assistants and nurses. •Nearly 1,000 Army National Guard and active Army positions, including infantry and artillery. Steve Ralls of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a gay advocacy group, savored the irony of the military's errant recruiting pitches. "The majority of GLEE's members would not be allowed to be as open in the military as they are online," he said, adding that gays "have been drummed out of the armed forces simply for using sites like GLEE." For complete coverage of the story, click here. - Steve Ralls

Labels: in the news, website

10-18-07