According to this report from the local CBS affiliate in San Francisco, an Air Force lab in Ohio proposed in 1994 that the Defense Department develop a “Gay Bomb,” a hormonal weapon intended to “turn” all enemy soldiers into homosexuals who would be “more interested in sex than in fighting.” The proposal failed.
Geoff Kors of Equality California had this reaction to news of the proposed “Gay Bomb:”
Throughout history we have had so many brave men and women who are gay and lesbian serving the military with distinction, so, it’s just offensive that they think by turning people gay that the other military would be incapable of doing their job. And its absurd because there’s so much medical data that shows that sexual orientation is immutable and cannot be changed.
-Bridget Crawford and Amanda Kissel
This is hardly a new revelation. It’s been reported before.
Bizarre military ordnance unworkable in reality and offensive in concept is not new. As an Army officer during Vietnam I heard far more offensive anti-gay views including several serious efforts, on a periodic basis, to “find” lesbians and force them out of the service (after they gave names). Those witch hunts, and that’s what they were, exercised a greater chilling effect on gay men and women, and on straights fearful of condemnation by association, than any half-baked “Secret Weapon.”
It may amuse some to know that during the critical periods of materiel shortages during World War II, a significant amount of time and money was expended by the Army Air Force to develop “Bat Bombs.” B-29s would fly over Japanese cities and release clusters of containers holding many bats each. Each “Combat Bat” on a one-way mission would have a tiny timed incendiary device attached to its body and the idea was that the largely combustible cities of Japan would erupt in multiple scattered fires which would combine in a firestorm.
The AAF actually built a mock Japanese village in the Southwest to try out this revolutionary weapon. The project was abandoned when it was discovered that good old incendiary bombs could and did the job very nicely.
Can you imagine what today’s animal rights activists would say about “Bat Bombs?”
I knew closeted gays who were deeply committed to the Army, as I was, and several who believed, and one continues to this day, in the American policy with regard to Vietnam.
Further, by the way, and I speak from experience, no one, absolutely no one, in actual combat has a raging libido whether the usual object of sexual excitement be male or female.
Ralph Michael Stein
(former CPT, MI, U.S. Army, 1965-8 and proud of my service)