Reservist acknowledges gay porn past

Reservist acknowledges gay porn past

By John Hoellwarth - Staff writer
Posted : Friday Mar 9, 2007 19:37:28 EST

A Reserve corporal whose star has been rising in conservative circles over the past few months — including appearing on Fox News and being photographed with right-wing firebrand Ann Coulter — has acknowledged appearing in gay porn films.

Cpl. Matthew Sanchez, 36, now a member of the Individual Ready Reserve, has made national headlines since, as a student at Columbia University, he stood up to war protesters who publicly vilified him for his military service while administrators there refused to intervene, citing freedom of speech.

Sanchez has appeared on cable television programs such as Fox News’ “The O’Reilly Factor” and “Hannity & Colmes,” and penned an editorial for the New York Post. He also wrote a Back Talk column for the Jan. 1 edition of Marine Corps Times titled, “Missing the big picture: Ivy League protesters feel superior to service members.”

Sanchez also appeared at last week’s Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington where he was photographed with his arm around Coulter, who caused a stir when she gave a speech at the conference in which she slammed Democratic presidential contender John Edwards using a vulgar word for a gay man.

On March 6, four days after Coulter’s comment, homosexual blogger Joe.My.God. published the picture of Coulter and Sanchez and alleged that Sanchez had spent the mid ’90s acting in gay porn films such as “Man to Men” under the screen names Rod Majors and Pierre LaBranche.

In a letter www.salon.com Thursday, Sanchez confirmed that “I acted in several adult movies 15 years ago,” but that he no longer does that.

“Porn reduces the mind and flattens the soul. I don’t like it. That’s not hypocrisy talking; that’s just experience,” he wrote. “I can tell you, though, that by the time I finished my brief tour of the major studios, I was pretty disgusted with myself. It was an emotional low, and the people who surrounded me were like drug dealers interested only in being with the anesthetized in order not to shake off the stupor of being high.”

While Sanchez says he has put his gay porn past behind him, the Marine Corps hasn’t. Homosexual behavior is prohibited by an article of the Uniform Code of Military Justice that forbids “sodomy.”

As a member of the IRR, Sanchez falls under the authority of Marine Corps Mobilization Command in Kansas City, Mo., where the commanding general’s staff judge advocate, Lt. Col. Michael Blessing, has begun an inquiry into the revelations about his past, according to command spokesman Shane Darbonne.

“We’re looking into it and we’re going to verify facts and determine if any further action is warranted,” Darbonne said.

As of Friday afternoon, officials at Marine Forces Reserve in New Orleans were unable to confirm whether Sanchez had enlisted prior to the end of his film career or if Reserve Marines were prohibited from doing porn when not in a drilling status. Sanchez has not returned phone calls seeking comment. He joined the Corps May 14, 2003 and is a refrigeration mechanic.

On Friday Officials at Marine Corps Recruiting Command were unable to say whether past participation in gay porn disqualifies a potential enlistee because it was unclear how the current “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy might apply.


Should past participation in gay porn disqualify a potential enlistee?

Ellie

Hell yea! Put him in and let him throw a kiss or two to the enemy, anything to get the towel heads attention so that a Marine can get a shot. Then when it's all over, well chum never last long anyway.

nasty, nasty, nasty, nasty, nasty,nasty

LMAO :banana:

LMAO!

Kick his ass out of my Corps!:thumbup:

I hate it when stuff like this makes the news....

I wish they could spend half as much time talking about the real hero's within our ranks

well i think about it and say to myself if you cant fight/unwilling to for your country you shouldnt live here and if hes gay well as long as hes not grabing feels wihle in fighting holes i dont see whats wrong with it. I had a good friend she came out as a lesbian but i didnt mind that much LOL

Bill targets 'don't ask, don't tell'
Updated 3/12/2007 3:19 PM ET
By Andrea Stone, USA TODAY

Brian Fricke, a former Marine sergeant who served nine months in Iraq's Anbar province, wasn't thrown out of the military for being gay. He left when his enlistment was up because he was tired of pretending he wasn't.

The "don't ask, don't tell" policy allows lesbians and gay men to serve if they keep quiet about their sex lives. Commanders are barred from asking subordinates about their sexual orientation.

"If people were talking about relationships, you'd have to play the pronoun game. 'He' became 'she.' You really just can't be yourself," says Fricke, 25, a government information technology specialist in Washington. "You'll never be able to tabulate" how many gay people have left the military voluntarily because of its "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

Fricke will be on Capitol Hill today when Democratic Rep. Marty Meehan of Massachusetts reintroduces his Military Readiness Enhancement Act.

The bill would repeal the policy President Clinton approved in 1993 as a compromise between ending a ban and gays serving openly. That would leave gays free to serve without limits.

Since the policy began, nearly 11,000 troops, the equivalent of an Army division, have been discharged.

The measure had 122 co-sponsors last year but died in the Republican-controlled Congress. Now that Democrats are in charge, Meehan plans to hold hearings as early as April. He says the bill has more than 100 original co-sponsors and seven freshmen.

Three Republicans have signed on, including Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida. She says her husband, Dexter, was cared for by a lesbian nurse when he was injured during combat in Vietnam.

Defense Department statistics released at the request of Congress and the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a gay advocacy group, show that nearly 7% of the 726 troops discharged under the policy in 2005 were medical personnel. That's the most in one year and brings to 334 the number of health care workers, including doctors, nurses and mental health specialists, dismissed since 1994.

"People in need of medical specialists couldn't care less about the sexual orientation" of those caring for them, Meehan says. "The policy is outdated and discriminatory."

Marine Maj. Stewart Upton, a Pentagon spokesman, says nearly 11,000 in war zones. "We are enforcing the policy," he says. "We are not experiencing any problems with recruiting and retention."

A Government Accountability Office report in February 2005 found that at least 800 dismissed gay servicemembers had skills deemed "mission critical" by the Pentagon. Among them: 54 Arabic-language specialists.

Congress takes up the issue amid changes in:

•The legal landscape. A federal appeals court in Boston will hear arguments March 7 in the first legal challenge to the policy since the Supreme Court struck down a Texas sodomy law in 2003. The high court said the Constitution's guarantee of liberty bars government from targeting private, consensual sex practices.

•Public opinion. Polls indicate growing acceptance of gay troops. A Harris Poll this month found that 55% supported allowing gays to serve openly, up from 48% in 2000.

A Pew Research Center survey last year found that 60% favored gays serving openly, up from 52% in 1994. Support ran 3-to-1 among those younger than 30. In contrast, Pew found that 39% favored same-sex marriage.

•Military needs. The demand for more troops has led to lower recruiting standards as Congress vows to add 92,000 soldiers and Marines by 2012. "The war makes it easier to think about lifting the ban," says Clyde Wilcox, co-editor of The Politics of Gay Rights.

•Military thinking. John Shalikashvili, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Clinton, once supported the policy but wrote in The New York Times in January that he believes gays should be allowed to serve openly.

Elaine Donnelly, whose Center for Military Readiness favors a ban on gays, calls Shalikashvili's column "very misinformed" and "part of a PR campaign" to overturn the policy.

Shalikashvili and other policy critics are taking a go-slow approach while fighting continues in Iraq.

John Hutson, once the Navy's top lawyer, calls "don't ask, don't tell" a transitional policy. "It bought us some time," he says, "but now I think that time has come and gone."

I have had personal correspondence with this young lad when he was going through the mess at Columbia. Isn't it interesting that this particular piece of personal history would come forth now? What a surprise.

If these incidents occurred prior to enlisting, then is it fraudulent enlistment?

Of course, if these occurred during enlistment, then he should be discharged, just as any other 'outed' homosexual would be. Simple as that.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sgt Leprechaun

I have had personal correspondence with this young lad when he was going through the mess at Columbia.

---

:scared:















;)

Just what we needed, another black eye.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SkilletsUSMC

:scared:















;)

---

Hilarious. :confused: He seemed like a squared away lad when I was talking to him.

Ah, well.

Corps may investigate Marine’s gay porn past

By John Hoellwarth - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Mar 14, 2007 16:49:12 EDT

A letter appointing an investigating officer to look into the admitted prostitution and gay porn past of a Marine in the Individual Ready Reserve is sitting on the desk of Mobilization Command’s deputy commander awaiting his signature, the command’s spokesman said Tuesday.

Col. Stephen Brown’s signature would launch a formal command investigation into admissions that Cpl. Matt Sanchez worked as a male prostitute and appeared in numerous gay porn films under the names “Rod Majors” and “Pierre LaBranche” before joining the Corps in 2003, said command spokesman Shane Darbonne.

Sanchez, 36, a senior at Columbia University, falls under the authority of Marine Corps Mobilization Command in Kansas City, Mo., where the commanding general’s staff judge advocate, Lt. Col. Michael Blessing, began an informal inquiry last week to determine if the command should launch an investigation, Darbonne said.

In an interview Tuesday with Marine Corps Times, Sanchez confirmed his performances in such movies as “Man to Men” and “Jawbreaker” over two consecutive summers in 1991 and 1992, but said he wasn’t then, and isn’t now, gay.

During a radio interview with Fox News Channel’s Alan Colmes last week, Sanchez acknowledged working as a male prostitute, but told Marine Corps Times he hasn’t had homosexual sex since he joined the Corps in 2003.

“It’s something that was a part of my life, but it’s in my past,” he said.

Sanchez has been in the spotlight in recent months after penning columns in the New York Post and Marine Corps Times, describing what he has called anti-military bias expressed by fellow students at Columbia. In one incident, his photo was used in an anti-war sign on campus. He also said fellow students publicly accused him of being “stupid” for joining the military as a minority. Columbia has not commented on their investigation into the matter.

Sanchez has since appeared on conservative cable shows and received an award while attending the Conservative Political Action Conference earlier this month. It was after this appearance that gay bloggers posted images and information about Sanchez’s gay porn past.

Homosexual sex is punishable under the article of the Uniform Code of Military Justice that forbids “sodomy.”

Sanchez, a refrigeration mechanic who joined the Corps in May 2003 and drilled with 6th Communications Battalion until June 2005, transferred to the IRR 11 days shy of his two-year mark, according to personnel records at Marine Forces Reserve in New Orleans.

Typical Reserve enlistment contracts are eight years, with six spent drilling with a Reserve unit and two in the IRR. Sanchez said he was transferred to nondrilling status early because of a medical problem.

The eight-year enlistment contract Sanchez signed in 2003 doesn’t expire until May 13, 2011, and “I’ll do anything the Corps asks me to do,” he said.

According to the Marine Corps’ Separation and Retirement Manual, “Marine reservists who act in pornographic movies while not in a drilling status are subject to administrative separation with an other-than-honorable discharge based on commission of a serious offense, that being indecent exposure.”

Sanchez said the scenes he filmed during the early ’90s have been re-used in numerous movies released since, which is why he has gay porn industry film credits as late as 2006.

But regardless of when Sanchez filmed his scenes, section 654 of U.S. Code Title 10 states, “The presence in the armed forces of persons who demonstrate a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts would create an unacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability.”

Though potential enlistees are not asked about their sexual orientation during the recruit screening process, there is still the matter of whether Sanchez committed erroneous or fraudulent enlistment by failing to tell officials during the initial screening process that he had appeared in porn movies.

Recruiting Command spokesman Master Sgt. James Edwards said each potential enlistee is screened physically, mentally and morally.

“If an applicant falls into the category of questionable moral character, he or she will be disqualified for enlistment. If an applicant is part of an inappropriate affiliation that will bring discredit to the Marine Corps, he or she will be disqualified,” Edwards said.

The separations and retirement manual states that a Marine could receive either an honorable or general discharge for fraudulent enlistment if “a deliberate material misrepresentation, including the omission of facts which, if known at the time, would have precluded the eligibility for enlistment.”

If MobCom officials decide Sanchez enlisted fraudulently, he would not be entitled to a hearing to plea his case before separation, said MarForRes spokesman Capt. Tyson Dunkelberger.

Sanchez is stoic about what comes next.

“They’ll do what they have to do,” he said. “Anyone who’s been in a situation like this knows that it’s out of their hands. The biggest thing is owning up to it and moving on.”

Should past participation in gay porn disqualify a potential enlistee?

Ellie