Pentagon and US military will allow US homosexual soldiers to march in uniform in a gay pride parade for the first time in United States history.

The Department of Defense and Pentagon, in a first-of-its-kind move, will allow active duty members of all branches of the US military to don their service uniforms while marching in an forthcoming San Diego gay pride parade.

The move came only weeks after the Pentagon joined the rest of the United States government for the first time in marking June as gay pride month and made an official salute to gay and lesbian US soldiers.

The US army said it was making the exception because parade organisers had invited service members to march in uniform and the matter was getting national attention.

Gay Pride Parade 2012  in San Diego / nearly 400 military members have already signed up to march in the gay parade

Current United States Secretary of Defense – Leon Panetta pledged in a video message to remove as many barriers as possible to making the military a model of equal opportunity and he has told that all US homosexual soldiers – gays and lesbians can be proud in uniform with the repeal last year of the ‘ Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell ‘ law.

San Diego’s Gay Pride Parade in 2011 had the nation’s largest contingency of active-duty service members participate before the military lifted its ban on openly gay military soldiers.

About two hundred US homosexual troops last year wore T-shirts with the name of their departments. The organizers of the military’s participation in the gay pride parade 2012 in San Diego, says they want US service members to wear their official uniforms to show there is no longer anything to hide.

The US army and Pentagon said the allowance is only for this year’s parade in San Diego and does not extend beyond that. Military homosexual troops wearing civilian clothes do not need permission to march in any parades.

Pentagon allows uniformed active duty US military to march in gay pride parade / US homosexual military procession in San Diego 2012

Only armed services veterans, not those on active duty, were allowed to wear their uniforms at gay pride parades in the past. US military troops could give permission to individuals to take part in such events in uniform, but no blanket permission had previously been issued.

For parades other than the San Diego gay pride parade event, local commanders are given discretion in allowing service members to participate unless it is likely to garner national or international interest or news coverage.

The US military has celebrated gay pride month at the Pentagon for the first time last month, an event that other federal agencies like the CIA had been celebrating for years.

Also in June, active-duty Air Force Technical Sergeant Erwynn Umali married his civilian partner Will Behrens on the McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst joint military base in New Jersey. The wedding was the first same sex marriage on an American military base.

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