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Since the liberalization of their laws, there has been no
appreciable rise in the frequency of homosexual relations in
these countries, according to a 1963 Rockefeller Foundation
report.
Just waht would the effect be if Nebraska's lawmakers
adopted the revised criminal code as it now reads?
In Nebraska, only five sodomy presecutions have reached
the courts in the state's history. The last came in 1948.
However, prosecution of the homosexual is not conducted
solely under the particular sodomy laws of a state. Defendants
are almost always charged with misdemeanors-disorderly
conduct, indecent exposure, disturbing the peace or vagrancy,
according to Capt. Lowell Sellmoyer of the Lincoln Police
Department, Criminal Division.
In the last year, Sellmeyer said, only about five cases of
forced sodomy have been reported in Lincoln.
"We don't go out looking for people in their homes," he
continued. "It's only when they make a nuisance of
themselves that we step in."
Louis Crompton, UNL associate professor of English, said:
"The same government which has fought discrimination in the
area of race has, through legislation and administrative
decision, promoted it in another."
The fact that there is a sodomy law creates a stigma,
Crompton said.
'The federal government can say it's illegal and immoral,
even if it's not enforced."
Crompton was coordinator of a proposed University course
in homophile studies that was rejected two and a half years
ago by the Board of Regents.
He said the current sodomy law creates "all sorts of
problems" for the homosexual, from citizenship and military
induction to discrimination in employment.
A recent U.S. Supreme Court decision stated that a man
admitting homosexual tendencies could be deported if an alien
and presumably deprived of citizenship if a naturalized citizen,
Crompton said.
In 1950, a special Senate subcommittee of the Committee
on Expenditures in the Executive Departments issued a report,
"Employment of Homosexuals and other Sex Perverts in
Government."
"This report appears to be the major base on which present
federal exclusionary policies rest," Crompton said.
A homosexual is almost always excluded from a
government job unless he hides his homosexuality, he
continued.
Civil Service regulations control about 2,500,000 jobs and
another two million need security clearance, he said. "It's
virtually impossible for a declared homosexual to qualify for
either."
According to the Senate subcommittee's report,
employment of homosexuals is undesirable for two reasons:
Homosexuals are "generally unsuitable" and are security risks.
They lack emotional stability, their moral fiber is weakened by
their indulgence in perverse sex acts, their attempts to seduce
normal persons have a "corrosive" influence on other
employes and they associate with other "perverts."
Fred Nevels of the Lincoln Civil Service office disagreed.
He said, "As long as an applicant makes the agency aware
of it, I don't know that they punish anyone. To my knowledge
nobody has ever been fired because of it."
Under most circumstances the commission will probably
give an admitted homosexual a clean bill of health, Nevels said.
"Besides, if they're not obnoxious, nobody would ever
know. If they get along with people and don't violate the law,
they're employable as far as we're concerned."
In the military, discrimination against homosexuals is "a
terrific problem," Crompton said.
Although recruits no longer have to answer specific,
incriminating questions on the medical questionnaire, millions
of records are there.
"Theoretically, they're confidential," he said. "But for
many jobs, even taxi drivers, you have to consent to give
access to draft records.
"If you're 4-F or 1-Y for an unexplainable reason, there's
no way you'll get hired."
The Uniform Code of Military Justice punishes sodomy
with five years imprisonment, dishonorable discharge and a
forfeiture of all privileges.
Army discharge figures for homosexuality between 1964
and 1967 show that 3,956 men were released. Of those, 2,178
were listed as undesirable discharges. The rest were general
discharges.
Estimates place the number of lessthan-honorable
discharges for iil services at about 2,000 a year since 1950.
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