A third-floor room in downtown San Francisco contains military treasures from the past never before displayed for the public's view. The items themselves – weathered news clippings, black and white photos, neatly pressed uniforms, and even a submarine model – are hardly controversial.

But the story the collection tells lies at the heart of a raging political and cultural debate over whether gays and lesbians should be allowed to serve openly in the country's military. Arguments over the armed forces' "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, which states gays can serve as long as they don't come out, have recently erupted at the highest levels of government, from the removal of the military's top commander to the debates among presidential candidates.

The exhibit, called Out Ranks, is the first in the nation to focus on the lives and contributions of LGBT veterans. Sponsored by the GLBT Historical Society, it follows two timelines that run parallel courses: one focuses on major military conflicts since 1941, the other on LGBT military personnel fighting in those wars.

"It is way past time we remind people both inside the gay community and outside the gay community of LGBT service in the military," said San Francisco resident Steve Estes, 34, who curated the show. "I view serving in the military as a fundamental right that impacts other rights."

The show is also meant to unearth the fact that there has been a ban against gays serving openly in the ranks long before DADT went into effect in 1993.

"People don't realize there's been a ban on homosexual sex or sodomy since the Revolutionary War. During World War II the military made that ban explicit," said Estes. "This exhibit tries to address that historical amnesia."

An associate professor of history at Sonoma State University, Estes himself never served in the military. But his father served in the Air Force during the Vietnam War and his brother was born on a military base. Estes, who is married and raising a daughter, wrote the book Ask & Tell: Gay and Lesbian Veterans Speak Out (University of North Carolina Press) based on oral histories he conducted with veterans from World War II up to the Iraq War.

The exhibit grew out of that project and a chance conversation with a historical society board member.

"I had done some research in the stacks so I knew the historical society had some amazing resources," said Estes.

He said the variety of the stories he heard from vets surprised him most of all.

His interviewees, said Estes, ranged "from out and out activists to people who were quiet heroes to people whose stories wouldn't be told in a gay context until they left the military."

One such person is Castro resident Steve Clark Hall, a Naval Academy graduate who served for 20 years. At one point he commanded the nuclear submarine the USS Greenling, with 145 sailors under his command.

"I certainly didn't wear the word gay stamped across my forehead. I had various levels of outness depending on how I felt in my work environment," said Hall, who retired in 1995. "I, in effect, came out to my crew without saying, 'Hey, your captain is gay.' I did it by my actions."

The San Francisco native spent eight years at the Mare Island Naval base in Vallejo, served on the command staff at the Naval Air Station in Alameda, and worked in a secret Silicon Valley location near Moffett Field for a time. After DADT went into effect, he cut his career short and opted to retire.

"I was tired of living a double life. I thought I could do it. I really wanted to go up the ranks to try to fix the problem from the inside," said Hall, who would entertain his admiral and other officers at his house in the heart of San Francisco's gay neighborhood. "But when DADT came out as it did in 1993, it became pretty apparent to me it would be very difficult to work my way up hidden."

Hall said the "real truth then and now" is that gays and lesbians are accepted in the military and among the ranks until their presence becomes an issue for their commander's advancement.

"A commander is not going to get rid of a person who is gay unless it hurts their career to not get rid of them," he said. "It is very frustrating for some of us that it has become a political issue when it really shouldn't be. We should follow the other countries in NATO that allow gays to serve. Why is it Portugal, Turkey and the U.S. really are the only ones that can't let go? Britain is actually recruiting gays and lesbians for their military now."

Estes readily admits he created the show from a partisan viewpoint. One wall depicts how the numbers of discharged gay soldiers goes up and down depending on if the country is at war. It illustrates what Estes sees as the hypocrisy behind the DADT policy.

"You see how during war discharges fall and in peace time discharges rise," he said. "The ban is pure prejudice. I came to it with a political agenda."

The exhibit includes the Air Medal citation, letter from President Truman, and photo of Robert Ricks, a WWII B-24 bomber navigator whose plane was shot down in August 1943 and who spent the rest of the war behind German lines, including three months in Dachau; the Bronze Star Citation and photo of Robert Fleisher, who helped liberate Dachau; and a photo of military police guarding the entrance of the Black Cat, a popular gay bar in San Francisco during WWII, in an attempt to keep military personnel out.

The heart of the show is the collection of Leonard Matlovich, who served in the Air Force during the Vietnam War. Items of Matlovich's in the show include his full dress uniform, dog tags, Bronze Star medal, and his footlocker.

Matlovich challenged the ban on gays in the military by telling his commanding officers he was a homosexual but wanted to remain in the service. The Air Force kicked him out, and Matlovich sued the secretary of the Air Force. His legal fight landed him on the cover of Time magazine in 1975.

"It was a shocking cover. It was a photo of him in uniform with the words 'I Am A Homosexual.' I don't think people remember how big a deal that was," said Estes.

Matlovich lost his legal fight, but the lawsuit did prompt the military after 1981 to switch from giving gay service members dishonorable discharges to honorable discharges. Matlovich lived in San Francisco but eventually moved to the Russian River area and died of AIDS in the 1980s.

A photo shows his friends gathered round his tombstone in the Congressional Cemetery in D.C., which reads, "When I was in the military, they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one."

A free opening reception for the show takes places from 6 to 8 p.m. tonight (Thursday, June 14) in the GLBT Historical Society's main gallery at 657 Mission Street, 3rd floor. The show runs through next year.

This Sunday, June 17 on ABC7 News, the program Beyond the Headlines will focus on gays in the military and feature the new exhibit. The 30-minute show airs at 10 a.m.