It's awkward to try to be gracious when you receive a gift that isn't exactly what you want. We've all been in that situation: the necklace or necktie you know you'll never want to wear, the tasty treat that gives you indigestion, the vase or desk accessory in someone else's (bad) taste. But what if the giver is POTUS?

This was the position the gay community found themselves in at the beginning of June when President Obama announced: "I... do hereby proclaim [1] June 2009 as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month. I call upon the people of the United States to turn back discrimination and prejudice everywhere it exists."

What a lovely idea! Of course we should end discrimination and prejudice everywhere it exists. The strange thing is, there is still discrimination right within what might be called Obama's own organization. Members of the armed services who are willing to actually die for the equality guaranteed by our Constitution can still be dismissed merely for admitting their sexuality.

Before 1993, being gay in the armed forces usually meant a dishonorable discharge, criminal sanctions, and denial of benefits. In the case of at least one naval officer, it meant brutal death at the hands of a shipmate. "Don't ask, don't tell," a policy put into place by President Clinton, was actually seen as progress, because for the first time, homosexuals were officially allowed to serve in the military... as long as they didn't tell anybody they were gay.

As early as 1957 (but yet another secret until 1976) a Navy study, generally referred to as the Crittenden Report [2], concluded that, "There is no correlation between homosexuality and ability or attainments." As for security risk, the report revealed that sometimes heterosexual relations were "more of a security threat than homosexual conduct."

Thirty years after that initial report, a 1988 report (later published as Gays in Uniform: The Pentagon's Secret Reports [3]) confirmed earlier findings: "Having a same-gender or an opposite-gender orientation is unrelated to job performance in the same way as being left- or right-handed."

In spite of this clear determination, reliable, useful, dedicated service personnel continue to be dismissed not for being gay per se, but for speaking their truth.

In his June 1 address, Pres. Obama went on to say that, "The LGBT rights movement has achieved great progress, but there is more work to be done." It would have been a great step forward if some of that work had been accomplished in "Gay Pride Month."

Photo by Geordie Mott. These foreign soldiers may be just friends, but for an American soldier, even holding hands with a friend could be risky.