Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 107 Part 2.djvu/721

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PUBLIC LAW 103-160—NOV. 30, 1993 107 STAT. 1671 "(A) the extraordinary responsibilities of the armed forces, the unique conditions of military service, and the critical role of unit cohesion, require that the military community, while subject to civilian control, exist as a specialized society; and "(B) the military society is characterized by its own laws, rules, customs, and traditions, including niunerous restrictions on personal behavior, that would not be acceptable in civilian society. "(9) The standards of conduct for members of the armed forces regulate a member's life for 24 hours each day beginning at the moment the member enters military status and not ending until that person is discharged or otherwise separated from the armed forces. " (10) Those sta.ndards of conduct, including the Uniform Code of Military Justice, apply to a member of the armed forces at all times that the member has a military status, whether the member is on base or off base, and whether the member is on duty or off duty. "(11) The pervasive application of the standards of conduct is necessary because members of the armed forces must be ready at all times for worldwide deployment to a combat environment. "(12) The worldwide deplo3anent of United States military forces, the international responsibilities of the United States, and the potential for involvement of the armed forces in actual combat routinely make it necessary for members of the armed forces involuntarily to accept living conditions and working conditions that are often spartan, primitive, and characterized by forced intimacy with little or no privacy. "(13) The prohibition against homosexual conduct is a longstanding element of military law that continues to be necessary in the unique circumistances of military service. "(14) The armed forces must maintain personnel policies that exclude persons whose presence in the armed forces would create an unacceptable risk to the armed forces' high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and imit cohesion that are the essence of military capability. "(15) The presence in the armed forces of persons who demonstrate a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts would create aa imacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability. "(b) POLICY. — A member of the armed forces shall be separated Regulations. frt)m the armed forces under regulations prescribed by the Secretary of Defense if one or more of the following findings is made and approved in accordance with procediires set forth in such regulations: "(1) That the member has engaged in, attempted to engage in, or solicited another to engage in a homosexual act or acts unless there are further findings, made and approved in accordance with procedures set forth in such regulations, that the member has demonstrated that— "(A) such conduct is a departure from the member's usual and customary behavior; "(B) such c^onduct, under all the circumstances, is unlikely to recur;