LEONARD MATLOVICH, GAY SERGEANT DISCHARGED FROM AIR FORCE, DIES

By Bart Barnes

Leonard P. Matlovich, 44, a former Air Force sergeant whose 1975 discharge after his avowed homosexuality became a major gay rights rallying point, died June 22 at the home of a friend in Los Angeles. He had AIDS.

Mr. Matlovich, a 12-year Air Force veteran who was awarded a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart for combat service in Vietnam, fought the discharge in military and civilian courts for five years. The case drew nationwide attention as a symbol of the struggle to stop discrimination against gay men and lesbians.

In September 1975 Mr. Matlovich's picture appeared on the cover of Time magazine in connection with an article entitled The Gay Drive for Acceptance. The inscription under the picture was I Am a Homosexual. Eventually he settled out of court with the Air Force for $160,000 in exchange for an agreement to give up his battle for readmission.

In later years, Mr. Matlovich was active in a variety of gay and lesbian causes in Washington and on the West Coast, and in several support organizations involved with AIDS.

He made his decision to test the military's ban on homosexuals near the end of the summer of 1974 after several hours of conversation and counseling with Franklin Kameny, a Washington-based gay rights activist. At the time, Sgt. Matlovich had served 11 years in the Air Force, and he had received exemplary efficiency ratings in addition to his combat decorations. He was a technical sergeant and a human relations specialist at Langley Air Force Base.

The following March, Sgt. Matlovich sent a memorandum to his commanding officer at Langley declaring that, After some years of uncertainty I have arrived at the conclusion that my sexual preferences are homosexual as opposed to heterosexual. I have also concluded that my sexual preferences will in no way interfere with my Air Force duties . . . .

Sgt. Matlovich said at the time that his first homosexual experience had been in 1973 with a government civil servant whom he met in a gay bar in Pensacola, Fla. After that, he said, his sexual partners had included doctors, lawyers and two other airmen, but he said he never had been threatened with blackmail. My partners have all been persons about my age or slightly younger. . . and have without exception been respectable average citizens, he said in a letter to Air Force investigators.

Historically, the Air Force and other services had excluded homosexuals on the grounds that they would threaten discipline, good order, morale and security . . . wholesome and healthful environment.

On receiving Sgt. Matlovich's memorandum, his commanding officer initiated steps to get the sergeant out of the service. Sgt. Matlovich asked for a hearing before a five-member discharge panel, which recommended a general discharge. That recommendation was approved by Air Force Secretary John McLucas.

Mr. Matlovich subsequently sued in U.S. District Court in Washington where Judge Gerhard A. Gesell ruled in 1976 that the discharge was within the discretionary authority of the Air Force and that there was no constitutional right to engage in homosexual activities. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit sent the case back to Gesell for further proceedings, holding that the Air Force had not properly defined various exceptions under which a homosexual airman could remain in the service and why Mr. Matlovich did not qualify.

After the Air Force filed several contradictory statements on its homosexual policies, Gesell ruled in September 1980 that the service had engaged in perverse behavior and he ordered that Mr. Matlovich be reinstated.

Two months later the former sergeant and the Air Force reached the out-of-court settlement, which consisted of $62,000 in back pay and fringe benefits, plus $98,000 in additional compensation. The Air Force declared the case should have no effect on its policy of excluding homosexuals. Mr. Matlovich called it a half victory.,

The son of a career Air Force sergeant, Mr. Matlovich was born in Savannah, Ga., and grew up on military bases in South Carolina, Alaska, Guam and Florida. He joined the Air Force in 1963 after graduating from high school in England, and served three tours of duty in Vietnam, and in the Philippines and at several Air Force bases in the United States. He was wounded in Vietnam when he stepped on a Viet Cong land mine, and he won a Bronze Star for killing two soldiers during a Viet Cong attack on his post while he was on sentry duty.

Long before he entered the Air Force, Mr. Matlovich said, he knew he was gay, but until he was 30 he repressed his sexuality and avoided relationships with both men and women.

After leaving the Air Force, Mr. Matlovich lived in Washington from 1975 to 1978. He then moved to San Francisco where he for a time he sold used cars. He lived in Washington again in 1984 and 1985 and then in San Francisco. He moved to Los Angeles in April.

In June 1987, Mr. Matlovich was one of 64 demonstrators arrested while blocking traffic on Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House in a protest of the Reagan administration's AIDS policies.

Survivors include his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Leonard Matlovich of West Palm Beach, Fla., and a sister, Margaret Wrobel of Wisconsin. Mr. Matlovich is to be buried at Congressional Cemetery in Washington. He arranged recently for a black granite tombstone bearing this inscription:

A gay Vietnam veteran. When I was in the military they gave me a medal for killing two men -- and a discharge for loving one.