Britain's MI5 Recruiting Gay Spies

In stark contrast to the lunacy in the USA that bars gays from serving in the military - principally in order to pander to deranged Christianists like Elaine Donnelly, Tony Perkins, Daddy Dobson, and similar hate merchants - the United Kingdom is now recruiting gay spies. The UK already allows openly gay individuals to serve in its military and has had none of the problems that cause Ms. Donnelly to have near orgasms. Obviously, having openly gay spies totally eliminates the old fears and myths that gays would be subject to blackmail and, therefore, should not serve in sensitive intelligence positions. Here are some highlights from Yahoo News:

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LONDON (AFP) - The Security Service is actively recruiting gay spies and wants its staff to be more open about their sexuality, the Financial Times reported Monday. The chief executive of Stonewall, a gay rights lobby group, told the business daily it had been hired by the Security Service -- better known as MI5 -- to help the agency encourage more gay applicants for positions.

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"This (move by MI5) is recognition that the establishment is changing and slowly becoming more reflective of wider society." The intelligence agencies have in recent years attempted to cast a wider net when it comes to recruiting -- the country's foreign intelligence service MI6 placed its first-ever advertisement for jobs in a newspaper in May 2007, and in recent years, it has launched its own website.

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365gay.com also has these further highlights that set the wider context for the change:

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The British military long ago abandoned its ban on gays serving openly and also recently asked Stonewall for help in recruitment. M16, the country’s foreign intelligence service, ended its ban on gay spies a year ago.

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Homosexuality was decriminalized in the UK in 1967 but gays and lesbians were barred from working in sensitive jobs in the diplomatic or security services until the early 1990s, over concerns that gay spies could be vulnerable to blackmail.