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Right to Serve campaign brings sit-ins back to Greensboro
By Amy Kingsley
 | | Alex Nini (left) is arrested after trying to enlist in the US Army as an openly gay citizen. (Photo by Amy Kingsley) |
The quiet zzzzzppppp of plastic zip ties. A police officer's low voice as she searches pockets. Camera shutters snapping away.
On
Sept. 21 all of these were sounds of social transformation, said Matt
Hill Comer. He was the city organizer for the Soulforce Right to Serve
campaign, a program in which openly gay men and women attempt to enlist
in the armed services.
The morning started cool and clear;
enlistees Comer, Jessica Arvidson, Stacy Booe and Alex Nini gathered
with supporters in a parking lot opposite the US military recruiting
office. Representatives from media outlets poked microphones in
students' faces and asked them for their stories.
Comer, a
politically active 20-year-old UNCG student, addressed the cameras
dressed in khaki pants, a navy jacket and a perfectly knotted tie
fluttering in the wind. The road that led him to the recruiting center
started back in Winston-Salem during his freshman year of high school,
when Comer joined the Army Junior ROTC program. Then, as now, his
sexual orientation was an issue, and harassment from his fellow
students forced him to quit.
During the next several years,
Comer moved to Greensboro for college and became politically involved
on campus, running for office in student government. His politics
expanded to include the formation of a political action committee for
the dual purpose of engaging young voters and advancing an agenda of
equality for gays and lesbians.
He teamed up with Soulforce, a
national organization dedicated to nonviolent protest against
discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, for part of what the
group called an equality ride in spring 2006. The bus tour made stops
at college campuses that ban the enrollment of gay, lesbian, bisexual
and transgender students.
Two months ago, Soulforce organizers
informed Comer of the Right to Serve campaign. One of those organizers,
Katie Higgins, looked on as the Greensboro group prepared to stage the
16th such action out of 30 planned for this fall.
"The issue is not gays in the military," she said. "It's homophobia in the military."
Comer
mulled over whether to enlist for several weeks. The Department of
Defense's "don't-ask-don't-tell" policy precludes openly gay and
lesbian people from serving in the military unless they have a waiver
from Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, but Comer knew if he somehow enlisted,
he might be sent to war zones in Afghanistan or Iraq. As he stood in
front of the recruiting office, he addressed the crowd.
"I am answering the call of duty," Comer said. "I want to sign up to serve honestly and honorably."
Comer
said that since the enactment of don't-ask-don't-tell in 1993, almost
10,000 gays and lesbians have been kicked out of the armed services,
adding that an additional 65,000 serve in silence. Those serving under
the policy's provisions cannot report harassment or abuse due to sexual
orientation and must avoid conversations about their personal lives,
Higgins said.
"The only NATO countries that don't allow gays in
the military are the US and Turkey," Higgins said. "Our strongest
allies in the war on terror all allow gays in the military."
Comer,
Arvidson, Nini and Booe filed into the recruiting center alone, leaving
the media outside. They asked to enlist, but told the recruiting
officer that they would be unwilling to hide their sexual orientation
as a condition of service.
"We sat down and talked to the
recruiter and he was very personable," Comer said. "I told him I wanted
to serve my country and then I said there is one thing you should know
about me that might be a problem. I'm openly gay and I'm not willing to
hide that fact."
The recruitment officer told the group that
they could not enlist because of their open homosexuality. Their
supporters, six in all, slipped into the office and joined the four
enlistees in a circle on the floor, where all 10 sat cross-legged
holding hands.
The police, who were aware of the impending
action, had stationed a plainclothes police officer inside the
recruiting center. Minutes after the group sat down, he asked them to
leave or risk arrest. Only Booe left; the nine others were cuffed,
searched and loaded into a Guilford County Sheriff's Office van. They
were taken to a mobile command center, brought before a magistrate and
charged with trespassing, a Class 2 misdemeanor. Their court
appearances were set for Oct. 23.
Comer invoked the spirit of
Greensboro's 1960 Woolworth's sit-ins before his arrest, but the quiet,
mannered conduct of the police and army officials resembled none of the
physical and verbal abuse white Woolworth's patrons heaped upon the
A&T four. The tables turned this time around as well. Instead of
protesting for the right to be served, the students acted out of a
desire to serve. Before he entered the building, Comer pointed out the
similarities.
"Just like the four A&T students did when they
sat down at the Woolworth's," he said. "Once again the youth in
Greensboro are standing up for what is right. Once again the youth are
going to take a stand."
To comment on this story, e-mail Amy Kingsley at amy@yesweekly.com
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