Saturday Morning News

Pentagon Takes Action to End Anti-Gay Harassment in Military

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Gay activists are praising the Pentagon for, quote, "finally acknowledging a longstanding problem: anti-gay harassment in the military."

CNN military correspondent has details from Washington.

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JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN MILITARY AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Pentagon inspector general has found that anti-homosexual slurs and verbal harassment of gays are commonplace in the military.

KEN BACON, PENTAGON SPOKESMAN: The findings in the report are that we need to do more work on this policy.

MCINTYRE: The survey of more than 70,000 troops reveled that 80 percent had heard offensive ant-gay speech in the last year. Thirty- seven percent said they either witnessed harassment or experienced it themselves.

BACON: Overwhelmingly the harassment was verbal, although there was a disturbing amount of graffiti or gestures and in some cases even reported violence as part of the harassment.

MCINTYRE: A much lower number, 10 percent, said harassment was tolerated by other members of their units. Five percent said superiors in their chain of command looked the other way.

The results come as no surprise to Lieutenant Edward Galloway, who came out and was kicked out of the Navy. Galloway said he feared jokes about him might turn into more serious harassment and found his commander wouldn't protect him.

LT. EDWARD GALLOWAY, U.S. NAVY (RET.): My captain wouldn't take action on it, so -- I have very fond memories of the Navy, but the way I was treated, I think, was very shameful.

MCINTYRE: Gay rights advocates say that's the problem.

MICHELLE BENECKE, SERVICEMEMBERS LEGAL DEFENSE NETWORK: In the course of the last six years, uniformed leaders, our military leaders in uniform, have been missing in action when it comes to stopping anti-gay harassment. MCINTYRE (on camera): Defense Secretary Cohen insists harassment of gays will not be tolerated. He's ordered senior Pentagon officials to come up with a plan by this summer to stop it.

Jamie McIntyre, CNN, the Pentagon.

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