http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060628...4yBHNlYwNmYw--
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Homosexuality was listed in error as a "mental disorder" in a 1996 Defense Department directive and will be removed from the document, a Pentagon spokesman said.
"Homosexuality should not have been characterized as a mental disorder in the appendix of a procedural instruction," the Pentagon said in a statement. "A clarification will be issued over the next few days."
Members of Congress demanded that the document be withdrawn after it was brought to light earlier this month by The Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military at the University of California at Santa Barbara.
The document is a "Department of Defense Instruction" on physical disability evaluation dated November 14, 1996.
It lists "homosexuality" under "certain mental disorders" along with such conditions as alcoholism, mental retardation and sexual gender and identity disorders.
Lieutenant Colonel Jeremy Martin said listing homosexuality as a mental disorder, although mistaken, only ruled it out as a physical disability for the purposes of separation or retirement from the military, and had no other practical effect.
But, he said, the document "is going to be revised to eliminate the word (homosexual) because it shouldn't have been there in the first place."
The American Psychiatric Association declassified homosexuality as a mental disorder in 1973.
The Pentagon in 1993 adopted a policy of "don't ask, don't tell" policy with regards to gays in the military under which servicemembers are discharged if they make public their homosexuality.
Last year, 726 servicemembers were forced to leave the military for homosexuality.