Can gay people get drafted

During the Vietnam War, if you were drafted, could you own walked into the draft board, said that you were male lover, and then been excused, no further questions asked?

If so, I can’t imagine why, and I know that there was far more stigma attached back then, that more guys didn’t act that.

Not really. They didn’t yearn gay men, but they wouldn’t just believe you were. Too many men would have gotten out of service. It would have been a lot easier than leaving the country to avoid serving because you were drafted. Remember this wasn’t a voluntary service war, which makes a big difference from what is happening now and during the Gulf War.

Not really. They didn’t want gay men, but they wouldn’t just believe you were. Too many men would have gotten out of service. It would have been a lot easier than leaving the country to avoid serving because you were drafted. Remember this wasn’t a voluntary service war, which makes a big difference from what is happe

Despite military conscription closure in , the prospect of organism drafted was a scenario on the minds of many gay men in the decades accompanying the Vietnam War. In , as a response to Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan, President Jimmy Carter reinstated the system that required all men born in or later to register for the Selective Service within 30 days of their 18th birthday. This kicked off the horror of another military draft.

In October , PGN published a feature titled “Beat the draft: How gays can linger out of the military,” by Marc Killinger. 

“Not only undertake military regulations prohibit homosexuality while in the armed forces, it prohibits anyone who knows they are gay from entering in the first place,” Killinger wrote. “Hence, juvenile gay men who are drafted encounter a double jeopardy of prohibitions.”

At the time, there was debate over whether or not the all-volunteer military was sufficient. When President Carter reinstated the Selective Service System, it ignited modern theories that a draft was imminent. Senator Mark Hatfield (R-OR), who opposed the Vietnam War, was quoted as say

7 Ways Americans Avoided the Draft During the Vietnam War

For most of the Vietnam War, full-time college students and graduate students were able to acquire a legal deferment from the draft. Since college was expensive, and Shadowy and minority college enrollment was low at the time, this is one of the loopholes that unevenly benefited middle- and upper-class white Americans.

“One of the points that’s very clear is that men with means—whether that's actually money, cultural or political capital, or a finer education—absolutely could get out of service a lot easier than folks without those things,” says Rutenberg. “Poor and working-class men, particularly men of dye, were disproportionately drafted.”

Similar to the effect on marriage and birth rates, there was a 4- to 6-percent increase in college attendance during the slow s, when college students were automatically deferred. In , most of the college and graduate learner deferments were dropped except for divinity students and medical students.

Drafted: My Year in Vietnam as a Gay Anti-War Soldier (An Excerpt)

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By Harry Haines

Like most other young guys in , I spent a lot of hour figuring out how to avoid the Vietnam War draft. As I completed my undergrad degree at Southern Illinois University, I knew my time was running out. I had managed to secure the college deferment, and I even made the sharp move of transferring my Selective Service board from my native New Jersey to Illinois, gaining some extra time as the bureaucracy slowly played out.

A couple of fellow students inspired me with their Beat the Draft stories. One of them returned to campus after a holiday trip back residence to Chicago and proudly announced that his father had bribed the right Selective Service operative with $4, He was residence free with a coveted 4-F draft designation. We all wondered how to scrape together $4,

The other guy had the nice luck to be taken out by his buddies on a drunken spree on the night before his induction physical was scheduled miles away in St. Louis. The guy passed