UTV show addresses ROTC discrimination

The Pentagon policy preventing homosexuals from joining the Reserve Officers Training Corps was the focus of the premiere edition of Straight Talk, a UTV program which will focus on issues in the lesbian, gay and bisexual community. According to the show's moderator, College junior Sloan Wiesen, the show will provide a forum for the "serious" discussion of lesbian, gay and bisexual issues. "So often we are ignored in the media, and when our issues are dealt with, it is in a comic fashion," Wiesen said. The show, taped in front of approximately twenty people from within and outside the University community, featured Joseph Vilcheck, who was released from the military after three years of service when he informed officials that he is gay; Mary Duarte, a Wharton junior who is in ROTC -- though not officially representing ROTC on the show; and Undergraduate Assembly representatives Ethan Youderian, a Wharton freshman, and You-Lee Kim, a College sophomore. Vilcheck opened the discussion commenting on the difficulties about being a gay man in the military. "The military is a culture shock," Vilcheck said. "I was totally in the closet. You have to be, because the military can do awful things." Much of the discussion focused on a UA resolution sponsored by Kim and passed last month. Kim explained the background behind the resolution which condemned the Department of Defense policy barring openly gay men and lesbian women from ROTC service as inconsistent with University harassment policies. "It's not a matter of changing the laws, it's a matter of changing its attitudes," Kim said. Youderian, who last month proposed removing a clause in the UA's resolution calling for the barring of ROTC in 1993 if they refused to change the policy, said that he suggested the change to help pass the resolution. "The UA took a positive step to address a very sensitive issue at hand," Youderian said. "I added the clause because it was the only way that we could pass the proposal." However, Wiesen criticized the change in Kim's original UA proposal. "I support the original proposal for the University to act with no holds barred," Wiesen said. "The motion that was passed has very little teeth to it." Duarte stressed that ROTC would need to be changed on a national level, not on the University level. "ROTC is not an individual organization," Duarte said. "[Their decisions] are determined by the citizens of the United States because we elect the people in charge." Duarte added that "kicking ROTC off of the campus" is not the best way to handle the dispute. "With all of the Army's cutbacks, they'd be happy to take all of their officers to more conservative places where they wouldn't be criticized," Duarte said. Kim also said she does not want to see the ROTC program eliminated from the University. The program, she said, "provides opportunities to the University and to society as a whole." Kicking ROTC out of the University would "damage a source of officers that would change the anti-gay sentiment," said Hal Perloff, a college senior and ROTC member. He added that a possible solution would be to have the Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Alliance organize a workshop of "forced interaction." "As an outsider, I realized that the issue is very large," Joseph Pantoja, a Wharton senior, said. "Gays as a minority must rely on the majority in society, the heterosexuals, to make a change."

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