The nation's top military officers now say they do not care about the sexual orientation of the troops, but they want to segregate avowed homosexuals by limiting them to rear-echelon jobs and off-base housing. Their proposal is an attempt to satisfy President Clinton's demand for lifting the military's ban on gays with minimal impact on front-line combat troops.
The chiefs acknowledge that segregating gay men and women would spark years of "guerrilla warfare" between gay rights activists and the armed services, even though they think such a policy could prevent anti-gay violence and other "disruptive" behavior during military operations in the field, the official said.
"We can't allow people to come out of the closet," said the official, who has spoken with the chiefs and agreed to be interviewed only if his identity was not disclosed.
He criticized soldiers who want the right to "stand up and say I'm a homosexual on Phil Donohue and have my 15 minutes of fame. If this person thinks it's more important that he identify himself as a homosexual than to think about the solidarity of his unit, then we don't want him. He's said right then, 'I don't give a damn what the effect is on people in the unit.'
"We say, fine, you do that in civilian life. We're only interested in people who place the consequences of what they do to the unit above this kind of personal grandstanding."
Tuesday, a White House adviser on the issue said Clinton has not reviewed the option of segregating avowed homosexuals, although he has repeatedly stated his opposition to discrimination against gays who want to serve in the military.
"We know there's going to be resistance to the president's desires at every step of the way, and they'll come up with every convoluted and lame step they can," the official said.
The military chiefs are at the earliest stages of developing a response to Clinton's Jan. 29 directive on gays in the military. They were directed to work with Secretary of Defense Les Aspin to produce recommendations for an executive order in June that would end the military's longstanding exclusion policy on homosexuals.
Now, they are carrying out their orders even while continuing to oppose a policy change. The Air Force and other services have appointed advisory task forces to consider a list of more than two dozen issues during the six-month review ordered by Clinton, mostly relating to the legal and practical impact of bringing homosexuals into military life.
From the chiefs' perspective, allowing homosexuals to serve in uniform but segregating those who come "out of the closet" may be the best "compromise" between the president's anticipated final order and the depth of feeling against lifting the ban that most officers and enlisted personnel share, the official said.
One issue for review is the option of treating homosexuals in much the same way the military treats women, who are prohibited from ground combat and combatant ships. When Aspin first raised this late last month, he was described by administration officials as open to the idea and many others, and a White House spokeswoman said only that Clinton was ruling nothing in or out while the review was under way.
Gay rights activists, including some who have Clinton's ear, expressed outrage Tuesday that the military chiefs would favor segregating avowed homosexuals. They saw little consolation in the military's willingness to keep avowed gays in uniform.
"It's totally and completely unacceptable," said David Mixner, a friend of Clinton and a Los Angeles-based political fund-raiser. "It even creates more fear, more problems against those who come out. It punishes those who are honest and rewards those who aren't.
"I don't believe for a minute that that's going to be the policy of the Clinton administration or the secretary of defense," said Mixner, who detects growing support among military officers for some form of segregation. "I think it's only one of many options being explored."