Anti-Gay Policy Unfair, Guardsman Says

FULLERTON —  The way Michael Dull figures it, he was good enough to serve as a National Guardsman when the country was at war, whether he was gay or not. But now, an outcast in peacetime, he says he is the victim of a biased and inconsistently applied policy.

Even though Dull, 24, of Huntington Beach acknowledged to his superiors last fall that he is gay, the private first class was given orders in February to report for weekend duty, apparently reversing an earlier move toward discharging him.

But embarrassed Guard officials insisted Monday that Dull’s drill orders, rather than signaling any change in a longtime military ban on homosexuals in the service, were a mistake and that he will now be discharged.

The Dull case comes after repeated suggestions in the gay and in the mainstream press that the military has been quietly relaxing its prohibition on gay members because of the personnel demands caused by the war in the Persian Gulf.

Dull and some gay-rights supporters assert that Dull’s case could have offered a clear illustration of this trend and that Guard officials may only now be insisting that his orders were a mistake in order to avoid public disclosure.

“The whole thing’s rather bizarre,” Paul Di Donato, legal director of National Gay Rights Advocates in San Francisco, said of the Dull case.

“Either this is another example of a particular commander not understanding what the rules are,” he said, “or, more likely, of the military at a higher level waffling over the implementation of its policy--while insisting that they’re not changing their policy.”

Dull, an electronics sales counselor, said he plans to tell his story at a West Hollywood rally this weekend. “I need to make a stand,” he said. “They’re going to throw me out anyway, and I want to make sure I leave with a bang. I’m getting sick of being the victim of bigotry.”

Dull, a National Guard member since 1986, is a scout in a Fullerton-based infantry unit. In that role he has taken part in weekend duty once a month in addition to putting in a two-week stint once a year. His company was not called into active duty during the Gulf War.

Dull told his company commander last October in a letter that said “in early 1988 I started feeling an attraction toward my gender.” Although he understood the risk to his military career, Dull said, he wanted to reveal his homosexuality because he was afraid his superiors might see a newspaper photo of him participating in a gay-rights rally or demonstration.

The military has maintained its ban on homosexuals on the grounds that their presence could hurt discipline and morale.

After Dull made his disclosure, the National Guard began involuntary discharge proceedings against him last year, according to Col. Roger Goodrich, a California National Guard spokesman in Sacramento. Dull was placed on involuntary leave.

But on Feb. 28, as the proceedings advanced, Dull received a letter telling him that the results of his psychological exam had been received and ordering him to return to duty. Dull reported March 15 for weekend duty at the Fullerton armory.

Goodrich said Monday that Dull never should have been given his drill orders.

“There was an administrative error on the part of the unit” in Fullerton, Goodrich said. Goodrich maintained that unnamed unit officers either misread or misunderstood a Pentagon “stop loss” directive that sought to beef up personnel numbers during the war by suspending retirements but that specifically exempted homosexuality discharges from the directive.

“It was an error, and we’re going to correct it,” Goodrich said. He said Dull will now be discharged from the military because of his homosexuality.

Pentagon spokesmen in Washington said they had never heard of a case like Dull’s, but they underscored that the military is continuing its ban on homosexuals.

“The policy is definitely that homosexuality is incompatible with military duty,” said Maj. Doug Hart, a spokesman in charge of reservist and personnel matters. As for reports of a slackening in that policy, he said: “That is absolutely not true.”

Capt. Terrance Ewbank of Anaheim, Dull’s company commander, said that he was surprised to see Dull back at training last month but that he knew nothing as to how that came about. Ewbank also said Monday that he had not received any word from Sacramento about Dull’s discharge.

Lower company supervisors, who Ewbank said would have been responsible for Dull’s orders, declined comment on the case. Ewbank described Dull as “a really good troop.”

Dull said he hopes to stay in the military--”it was great to get back in the saddle” last month, he said--but that he expects to be discharged nonetheless.

His immediate goal, Dull said, is to stay in the service long enough “to walk up as a card-carrying soldier” to a Desert Storm rally in West Hollywood on Friday. Beyond that, he said, he might take legal action to block the discharge.

“I like a good fight, and I’m not one to avoid that,” he said.