Hearts And Minefields

A son's admission of his homosexuality to his Marine father adds poignancy to the debate about how open gays can be in the military

Scott Peck felt the first stirrings when he was just six years old. While his first-grade classmates in Odenton, Maryland, near Annapolis, wrestled with their ABC's, Scott grappled with a bewildering attraction to men. "I thought it was a phase I'd grow out of," he recalls. As the years passed, Scott fought his feelings. He dated girls and even slept with a woman in an attempt to disavow his inclination. Though he says it was "torture" trying to be a heterosexual, Scott fought on, at one point coming "dangerously close to getting married." Finally, Scott gave up the battle. "A year...

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