Your love life? It matters to 'Uncle'

< Washington Star WASHINGTON Your friends may approve, your landloard may not object and even your parents may find the situation tolerable. But if a government agency such as the FBI declares the arrangement to be "infamous, dishonest, immoral or notoriously disgraceful conduct," you may be bounced out of or denied a job for sharing a bed with a friend or fiance.

American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) lawyers increasingly are being contacted by federal workers who have been pressured into resignation, fired or denied jobs. because they are cohabiting with a person of the opposite sex.

Even more outrageous, in the eyes of some agencies, is cohabiting with a person of the same sex.

"If a male employe is a homosexual and it affects his work or if he starts bothering other men in the office, that's a different matter and we have a duty to release that person from our employ or not employ him in the first place," an FBI spokesman said.

To the individuals involved in alleged violations of government conduct codes, the pressure has resulted in costly, lengthy court cases, government blackballing and what one man described as "unbelievable mental anguish." Take, for example, the following

cases:

• Fred Bosse, 26, found that the Justice Department felt he would be a detriment to their agency after they told him he was a "prime candidate" for an internship position as a law clerk last year and then told him he could not have the job because he was living with his girlfriend.

Bosse, who graduated from Georgetown University law school last June is suing.

• Two CIA employes, who say their telephones were tapped, claim they were "leaned on" and "pressured" by supervisors who told them to leave the organization after their conversatioins revealed they were homosexual.

They considered filing suit, but rather than face the expense and publicity, both resigned.

• One female, who asked that both she and the agency remain anonymous, said she was continually harassed and threatened recently with the loss of her job after her former husband wrote a letter to her agency informing them she had had an extramarital affair before her divorce.

She managed to keep her job after the ACLU threatened suit.

• Two FBI employes, now married, say they were forced into leaving their clerical jobs at the bureau after it was discovered they had had premarital sex.

Joseph and Patricia Guido, both now unemployed, are suing the bureau, claiming it had no right to judge their private morality.

These apparent "victims" of government conduct codes say their First Amendment rights have been abused, their privacy invaded, their morality unfairly judged, their livelihood and professional ambitions jeopardized.

But the government evidently feels it does have the right to judge the sexual preferences and moral conduct of its employes and potential workers.

As a matter of fact, some government agency officials say the judgment on sexual attitudes and actions that has led to numerous layoffs and court cases -some with eventual reinstatements is more ofa public obligation than a constitutional right.

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