The growing conflict concerning the status of gay men and lesbians in the armed forces has become a focal point in the long, slow struggle toward equal rights for this stigmatized and oppressed segment of American society. The issue is a metaphor for the position long occupied by gay men and lesbians. Although it is well known that thousands of homosexuals serve in the armed forces, as long as they hide their sexual orientation, as long as they neither name it nor claim it, everyone can pretend they are not there, that they don't exist. It appears that it is not being gay or lesbian that brings wrath down on service personnel, but voicing it. Colin Powell, who has led the fight against President Clinton's commitment to eliminate discrimination against gays in the armed forces, claims that the president's position is very different than that of Truman when he ended the policy of racial segregation in the armed forces 45 years ago. In this situation, Powell argues, it is a question of behavior (Schmitt, 1993). The military's right to have an on-duty behavioral code for all service personnel, however, is not being challenged. The issue is not behavior, it is disclosure; it is the threat and the challenge posed when people come out of the closet. There is no better way to subjugate human beings than to silence them. There is nothing more oppressive than denying another's reality. Until the Stonewall demonstration and the birth of the gay liberation movement, lesbians and gay men survived through secrecy--and most still do. The cost was and continues to be great. As murdered gay sailor Allen Schindler poignantly wrote in his diary, If you can't be yourself, then who are you? (Diary, 1993). Forced to be invisible, without rights or protections, gay men and lesbians have been personally and politically disempowered. In his book, Gays/Justice, Mohr (1988) explored the relationship between invisibility, powerlessness, and social change. He wrote, Only when the government protects gays against discrimination in housing, employment, and public accommodation will gays have first amendment rights as powers. For all potentially effective political strategies involve public actions. More specifically, all the actions protected by the first amendment are public actions (speaking, publishing, petitioning, assembling, associating). Now, a person who is a member of an invisible minority and who must remain invisible, hidden, and secreted in respect to her minority status...is effectively denied all political power.... Thus, for gays and lesbians to become politically active and to fight for their rights and protection, they must be safe enough to become visible; they are only safe to do so if those rights and protections are already in place--an immobilizing paradox. The same situation exists in the personal world. The closeted condition of gay men and lesbians blocks understanding. Social reality is such that many people...think they do not know any gay people firsthand. Such widespread ignorance is a breeding ground for vicious stereotypes (Mohr, 1988, p. 176). Such invisibility and powerlessness made it possible for Chief Justice Warren Burger to say, after the Supreme Court decision upholding the Georgia sodomy laws, that he had never personally known a gay person (Sedgwick, 1988, p. 44). The best way to change heterosexuals' views about gay men and lesbians is for them to interact personally with openly gay people. Coming out, then, is an enormously powerful personal and political act. The courageous pioneers who came forward have taken great risks. But that was the message of Stonewall: Stand up, be counted, fight back. Every year, marches commemorating Stonewall give people an opportunity to stand up and be counted. As this goes to press, the planned April 25 march on Washington promises to be the largest demonstration to date of the increasing power of the gay rights movement. …