The Brutal Results of Buying Time

It should not have surprised anyone that President Clinton's State of the Union address last week neglected the issue of gays and lesbians in the military. After all, free advice flowing forth from editorial pages everywhere had admonished Clinton to focus on one thing: the economy, stupid.

But lest either Clinton or the bigoted defenders of the status quo think that ignoring the question of gay troops will make it disappear, the story of Allen Schindler should make them think again. Schindler, a 22-year-old naval radio operator, was brutally murdered by a fellow sailor a month after he revealed his homosexuality to his commanding officer.

Schindler's story is unique only in the magnitude of its horror. The harassment he experienced while he was awaiting a discharge for being gay is hardly unusual. But Schindler's punishment for his sexual orientation was death: On the night of October 27, 1992, at a U.S. naval base in Japan, Airman Apprentice Terry Helvey fatally battered him against the toilet fixtures of a public restroom.

Schindler's body was mutilated beyond recognition. According to news reports, his head was crushed, his ribs were smashed and his penis was lacerated. His mother was able to identify his disfigured body only by the tattoos on his arms.

Helvey claims he was about to use a urinal in the public restroom when Schindler tapped him on the shoulder. Turning around, Helvey supposedly saw Schindler standing with his pants down and his penis exposed.

Assuming it's true, it is difficult to accept Helvey's excuse as justification for murder. If death is a legitimate punishment for sexual harassment, then the male naval officers who stripped, groped and molested women at the 1991 Tailhook convention in Las Vegas deserve to die.

Furthermore, any argument of self-defense is questionable. Helvey's physical stature--newspapers described him as 6'4" and well-built--belies his assertion that he was "surprised and frightened" by Schindler's approach. His ability to brutally disfigure his victim underscores his strength. There were blood trails on the ground indicating that fSchindler had begun to escape from the restroom, only to be dragged back in for continued beating. This brutality far exceeds the so-called necessity of self-defense.

Additionally, Helvey was not alone the night of the murder. Aviator Charles Vins witnessed the event, and surely could have aided his friend if Schindler had made unwanted advances on him. (For Vins, the consequences of his failure to prevent the murder were light: In exchange for testimony against Helvey, he received only a four-month sentence and a bad-conduct discharge for failing to report a serious crime and resisting arrest.)

But Helvey's excuse for murder is as implausible as it is untenable. Before his death, Schindler had complained to friends and American entertainers whom he met at the naval base that he had been the victim of increasing harassment as word of his homosexuality had spread. In his personal journal, he had also expressed fears of being attacked.

Why would a man who had been frequently taunted with calls of "faggot" and "queer," who had been harassed because of his sexual preference, who feared being attacked by fellow sailors and who was soon to be released from military service make a homosexual advance on another naval officer?

Unfortunately, whether Helvey's story is true or not, the brutal murder of Schindler is sure to provide fuel for opponents of allowing homosexuals to serve in the military. Already, a number of people have cautioned that gays and lesbians should be excluded from military service for their own protection.

The murder of Schindler, these people say, is evidence that anti-gay sentiment is too strong for homosexual officers to be successfully integrated into the military. But pervasive bigotry and the threat of violence against African Americans was never a legitimate justification for continued segregation in the South or in the military, nor is it adequate in the case for discrimination against gays today.

The solution to the risk of tragedies like Schindler's murder does not lie in continuing to legally sanction institutional bigotry. What is needed is a dramatic effort to overhaul attitudes. The end of anti-gay intolerance will not come with an executive order from the president, nor will it result from Senate panel hearings. It will occur only over a long period of time, just as racism is still being slowly eradicated from our social institutions.

But the first step is the end of legalized discrimination in the military. The message has to come from the highest levels of American leadership that ignorance and intolerance must not guide governmental policy.

Schindler's death should not be cause to retreat from the battle for an inclusive military. But it is a frightening and powerful argument for caution. Anyone who views Schindler's murder as an isolated event that is unlikely to be imitated should listen to the sailors whose faces recently graced television screens nationwide.

These men shamelessly told viewers how they would treat openly gay military personnel: "I'd harass them," said one. "Hazings, you know, stuff like that." Another man issued a more ominous warning: "People fall overboard," he said casually. "It happens."

President Clinton bought time in dealing with this issue by allowing Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) to hold Senate hearings before the ban is formally rescinded. But it would be a perilous mistake for Clinton to ignore the issue until his six-month grace period expires and then to attempt an immediate reversal of policy.

While he waits for Nunn's Senate panel to "study" the issue, Clinton needs to maintain a public dialogue on the question of gays in the military.

Before and after he ends the ban, he should conduct an educational campaign directed at changing attitudes and reinforcing his own conviction that the ban on gays and lesbians is wrong. Otherwise, the situation he will face in six months will be no different from the one he confronted in his first weeks in office.

We can forgive the president for putting the issue aside for now, as he builds support for his economic proposals. But he should not assume that no one wants to hear about "fringe" issues like institutionalized bigotry. Surely, many people are horrified by the continued legal sanction on hatred and intolerance.

Allen Schindler's brutal murder resulted in part from an institutional setting that condones bigotry by codifying it into policy. The policy, and the attitudes it fosters, must change.