Gay troops gather at first Las Vegas convention

They left their uniforms behind but not their patriotism.

More than 200 soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and Coast Guard personnel converged on New York-New York on Friday for the first-ever convention for active-duty gays and lesbians in the U.S. military. The three-day conference falls on the heels of last month's repeal of the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy.

As a memento of the occasion, sponsors of OutServe, the association of actively serving lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender military personnel, handed out camouflage-colored buttons with the word "Tell" in white letters.

"It's the final frontier for the civil rights movement," said Kody Parsons, a senior airman from Travis Air Force Base, who offered his perspective as a gay man from Chico, Calif. He recently returned from an overseas combat deployment where he provided stress counseling to soldiers .

Parsons, 23, welcomed the opportunity to talk about lifting of the veil on homosexual military personnel. He said he joined the Air Force "to get out of Chico."

"I've always been gay but didn't accept who I was until I moved out on my own," he said, sitting in a conference room alongside Kristy Wolfmayer, a lesbian who is also a senior airman at the Travis base.

"I love the military," said Wolfmayer, 27, of Bridgewater, N.J., a pharmacy specialist. "I love serving my country, and I love the fact that you can do that no matter who you love."

Wolfmayer said she is "still nervous" about being open about her sexuality in the Air Force.

Wolfmayer said she hasn't experienced combat but was deployed in 2010 to an undisclosed location in southwest Asia in support of operations Iraqi Freedom, Enduring Freedom and New Dawn.

"I do my job. I work hard. That's what being in the military is about. My sexuality doesn't change my work ethic."

Both Wolfmayer and Parsons said they hope the day will come when the federal government provides benefits for same-sex partners in the military and their spouses.

Parsons said if he had a married partner, which he doesn't, "I do believe my partner should not be a second class citizen or less of a beneficiary. We should be entitled to everything a heterosexual is."

Regardless, he said he is happy that gays and lesbians can serve the U.S. military openly without fear of being booted out.

"Now I don't have to look over my shoulder or worry about someone seeing me with my boyfriend."

Within the next five years, Parsons said he hopes he "will be able to marry who I want."

"We need to continue to fight so we're recognized federally and not just in a sprinkling of states.

Sue Fulton, a 1980 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., who left the service as a captain, is one of the organizers of the OutServe leadership summit. Today's sessions include one titled "How Our Allies Did It" and another on "Dealing With Deployment."

"For so many years our gay and lesbian troops were silent," Fulton said.

"This is our first opportunity to get together and talk about the issues openly. We're talking about leadership, family, faith and partners to be better solutions.

"Our ultimate objective is to make the military better and stronger because it's diverse and inclusive," Fulton said.

Contact reporter Keith Rogers at krogers@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0308.