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GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE September, 1989

Leonard Matlovich's court battle against discharge from the Air Force because of his homosexuality is described in his biography, MATLOVICH, by Michael Hippler. [This photo may only be used in connection with reviews or other coverage of the book MATLOVICH, by Mike Hippler. All such uses must credit: Doug Hinckle/The Washington Blade.]

L

The

Math vich

The making of a conservative gay activist

Sgt. Leonard Matlovich's discharge from the U.S. Air Force because he was gay, and his legal battle for reinstatement, was a milestone in the fight for gay and lesbian rights.

Matlovich: The Good Soldier, by Bay Area Reporter columnist Michael Hippler, chronicles the public and private man who led the charge.

"Matlovich: The Good Soldier will become the definitive record of an important episode in American gay history," said Frank Kameny, gay rights activist and veteran of legal challenges to the government. "The book is a remarkably full, detailed, well-written and carefullyresearched account of an unusual person who made a major contribution to gay rights."

The historic court case began in 1975 when Matlovich, as part of a plan to force the Air Force to change its policy of discharging gays and lesbians, told his commanding officer he was gay. Matlovich's legal challenge to his discharge put this fervently conservative soldier in the unlikely position of gay activist.

The court battle lasted five years, during which Matlovich toured the country stumping for the cause.. After winning the case on technical grounds that did not force a meaningful change in Air Force policy, Matlovich accepted a monetary settlement.

"Some people accused me of selling out when I took the money," Matlovich says in his biography, "but I didn't see it that way. No, from my point of view it was a victory, for I showed that you can take

Leonard Matlovich (right) with Michael Hippler, author of the Leonard Matlovich biography to be published in the spring of 1989 by Alyson Publications of Boston. (Photo credit: Robert Pruzan.)

RFORCE

Leonard Matlovich volunteered for two tours in Vietnam before he was discharged from the Air Force because of his homosexuality. It was a bitter experience for someone who always played the role of the good soldier. (Photograph courtesy of San Francisco Bay Area Gay and Lesbian Historical Society.)

on the military and win."

The financial settlement was just one instance of a public life marked by controversy. Hippler details the instant "celebritydom" that resulted from Matlovich's appearance on the cover of Time magazine, and how his politically conservative views and naivete angered longtime gay activists.

"Leonard was a dynamic speaker, but didn't have an overview of things," Hippler said in a recent interview. "He couldn't plan. Basically, he reacted. Leonard did as much as he could do fairly well."

The biography also explores the private side of this very public man.

Hippler interviewed Matlovich and his family about Matlovich's childhood as an "army brat" in a religious household, and describes Matlovich's almost obsessive, and ultimately unsuccessful, search for a lover.

Matlovich, who learned he had AIDS in September 1986, was reluctant to share his story, but sensing that he could not wait, he began collaborating with Hippler the following year.

In one section of the book, Matlovich discusses his fight against AIDS and how it changed him. The political conservative became "radicalized in a conservative kind of way" by the Reagan administration's mishandling of the AIDS crisis, he says. Matlovich was arrested at the June 1987 civil disobedience protest in front of the White House.

The book was finished shortly before Matlovich's death in June 1988. ▼

legacy

Taps for a gay hero

Excerpted from "Matlovich: The Good Soldier," by Michael Hippler, Alyson Publications.

At Matlovich's request, his funeral was held in Washington, D.C., on the Fourth of July, following an Episcopal mass at Christ Church. There, the Rev. Robert Nugent, a Roman Catholic priest, compared Matlovich to "political saints" such as Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Harvey Milk. The D.C. Gay Men's Chorus sang, and Charles Gibson, co-host of the ABC television program "Good Morning America," spoke. Two hundred and fifty people attended.

Following the services, Matlovich was buried in nearby Congressional Cemetery with military honors. Despite his battle with the Air Force, as a veteran with an honorable discharge Leonard was entitled to a military funeral. Friends agreed that he would have been pleased with the results. As Frank Kameny told the Washington Blade, "The Air Force finally did it right and on Leonard's terms today. It's a pity that they didn't do it thirteen years ago."

The ceremony was a moving one. According to the Blade, a horse-drawn caisson carried Leonard's body to the cemetery. An eight-member honor guard served as pallbearers. Six Air Force riflemen fired three volleys in salute. Then an Air Force bugler played taps before a member of the honor guard presented the flag that draped Leonard's

"The Good Sollier"

Sgt. Leonard Matlovich's challenge to the Air Force in 1975 was the first time a gay serviceman willingly stood up and challenged the military's anti-gay policies, but it was not the last.

Since then, hundreds of gay men and lesbians have demanded the right to continue to serve in the armed forces without having to hide their sexual preference.

Petty Officer Dennis Beller, a Navy weatherman, was one of the first to follow Matlovich's example. Beller, a seaman for 16 years, was discharged by the Navy in 1976 after a security clearance investigation showed that he was living with a male lover, a former Marine.

Beller filed suit in the U.S. District Court in San Francisco, charging the Navy with invasion of privacy and violation of his constitutional rights. He lost the case and his 1980 appeal. In June 1981, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Beller's appeal.

He subsequently left the Navy.

The next case to garner national attention involved Navy petty officer James Dronenburg, 27, who was discharged in 1981. A 19-year-old seaman had charged Dronenburg with repeatedly engaging in homosexual conduct in a Navy barracks

charges Dronenburg initially denied but later acknowledged.

After his discharge, Dronenburg sued the Navy for violating his constitutional rights to privacy and equal protection under the law. A federal district court judge rejected his suit. The case then went to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, where the lower court decision was upheld.

Miriam ben-Shalom joined the Army Reserves in 1974 but was discharged the following year because she openly acknowledged that she was a lesbian.

Since 1978, ben-Shalom has gone to court repeatedly demanding that the Army re-enlist her. In January 1989, the court imposed a permanent injunction barring the Army from refusing to re-enlist ben-Shalom pending further decision of the court. The Army appealed, and on May 18, oral arguments were heard in

the UCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. On August 8, the court upheld Army's regulations requiring dismiss bf lesbian and gay soldiers.

One allenge to the military has been more scessful. Perry Watkins was drafted to the Army in 1967, even though told an Army psychiatrist at his production physical that he was gay andad known he was gay since age 13. On veral other occasions, he acknowleed his homosexuality without jeoparding his career.

In 191, the Army refused to re-enlist him, ting his "self-admitted homosality." Watkins sued, and in 1982, Settle District Court Judge Barbara R stein ruled in his favor.

A yet later, however, a three-judge panel the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeal in San Francisco ruled unanimously to overturn the lower court order.

Wats won an appeal in February 1988. ThU.S. Court of Appeals in San Francis ruled 2-1 that the Army's discriminaon against homosexuals was unconstituional on equal protection grounds was the first time a federal appella court had extended constitutional potection to homosexuals in the military

Gayers were ecstatic. The man who ste it all, Leonard Matlovich, said, "s the single most important decision ever rendered in the area of homosanal rights."

Soon after the decision by the Ninth Circuit as issued, however, the Reagan administration requested that the circuit reconsider its decision

In June 1988, a majority of the 33 circuit judges agreed and chose a panel of 11 judge to hear the case.

On May 3, 1989, the 11-member panel ruled the Watkins must be readmitted. However, its decision was not based on the constitutionality of the Army's policy excluding homosexuals, but rather on the Army's tacit approval of Watkin's homosexuality over his many years of

service.

casket to his mother.

The gay presence at the funeral was just as significant as the military presence. Seven gay activists served as honorary pallbearers. Mourners carried lavender and rainbow-striped flags, symbols of the gay movement. Finally, a series of gay speakers addressed those gathered at the gravesite.

Among those speakers were Perry Watkins, Frank Kameny, and Ellen Nesbitt, a lesbian fighting her own military discharge. Watkins, referring to Leonard's wartime tours of duty, said that foreign enemies in war were never as "bigoted and hateful" toward Matlovich as were his "homophobic" opponents in the United States. Kameny focused on the positive aspects of Leonard's career instead and said that he "greatly advanced" the gay rights cause. Nesbitt then urged the crowd to continue Matlovich's struggle for gay rights and to support the work he did as an AIDS activist. She also thanked Matlovich's parents "for instilling in Leonard so much love, courage, and selfrespect."

At the conclusion of the service, Leonard's friends and relatives departed, leaving flowers and flags behind. Newspaper reporters made a few final notes while cemetery workers filled in the grave. Under the black granite headstone highlighted by two pink triangles, the man who was given "a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one" was at last laid to rest.▾

MATLOVICH

THE GOOD SOLDIER *

Mike Hippler

AMMAN WITH

OS ARC!

At a 1987 anti-papal rally-Matlovich told the crowd why he as a public PWA, refused to meet with the pope. (Photo credit: Rink Foto)

September, 1989

GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE Page 13

Leonard Matlovich, whose multi-faceted life story has now been told, combined his outspoken gay advocacy with a strong sense of patriotism. [This photo may only be used in connection with reviews or other coverage of the book MATLOVICH, by Mike Hippler. All such uses must credit: Robert Pruzan.]

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