The Justice Department agreed Friday to settle out of court with a gay former FBI agent who brought a class action suit against the department on behalf of homosexual agents. As part of the settlement it issued an amended policy on gays.
The amount of the settlement was not disclosed at the request of the former agent, Frank Buttino, but will include a pension and compensation for lost pay, said his attorney, Richard Gayer.The FBI did not agree to rehire Buttino, according to Reuters News Service.
In addition to the compensation, the department issued a statement elaborating a new FBI policy of nondiscrimination against homosexuals. The new policy goes a step further than the one announced earlier this month, in that it explicitly permits homosexual "conduct" as well as "orientation."
The latest statement specifies that an applicant to the FBI "will not be asked to state or discuss specific, intimate sexual acts."
"Sexual conduct, whether homosexual or heterosexual, will be equally considered in determining one's suitability for employment when such conduct reasonably raises a question as to character, judgment, stability, responsibility, candor or discretion," the statement adds.
The policy announced Dec. 2 simply forbids discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation within the Justice Department, which includes the FBI.
"This means the FBI won't do the witch-hunt any more," said Gayer. "In the past they've done an investigation, the intensity of which you would not believe."
Buttino, 45, contended in the lawsuit against the bureau that he was fired in June after 20 years with the FBI because he is gay. He brought suit on behalf of past and current agents, as well as gay applicants.
But a Justice Department lawyer argued in a San Francisco federal court this week that Buttino was dismissed not because of his sexual orientation but because of a "lack of candor" in responding to FBI inquiries about his sexuality.
"They subjected him to five polygraph tests and asked him questions like . . . was he active or passive," Gayer said. "They harp on his `lack of candor' because they don't want to admit that they discriminated."
The FBI referred questions about the case to the Justice Department. A Justice Department spokesman insisted that Buttino was dismissed because he was evasive in responding to questions about his homosexuality, not because he is gay.