by Alasdair Palmer

About the author: Alasdair Palmer is a writer for the Spectator, a weekly British magazine.

In June 1995, British Lord Justice Simon Brown ruled against three men and one woman who had been dismissed from the Armed Forces for being homosexual. They were appealing against their dismissal on the grounds that the policy which led to it is ‘unreasonable’. The judge accepted the arguments of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) that it is not. Roger Freeman, the Minister for Defence Procurement, put the Ministry’s case in Parliament in May 1995. ‘The Ministry of Defence has long taken the view that homosexuality is not compatible with securing the aims of the Armed Forces because it undermines the good order and discipline necessary for military...