The US Air Force's Wright Laboratory in Ohio asked in 1994 for US$7.5 million to develop a bomb containing a powerful aphrodisiac chemical that would cause "homosexual behavior" to affect "discipline and morale in enemy units."

The document, obtained under the US Freedom of Information Act, was Friday drawing scorn and ridicule on the Internet.

The Department of Defense played down the proposal, which was unearthed by the Sunshine Project, an organization based in Texas and Germany that monitors research and development of biological weapons.

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"The DoD never `investigated' such a concept," said military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Brian Maka. "Rather, one individual provided a short concept paper that was rejected."

According to Maka, the idea was one of several proposals for non-lethal weapons, including a chemical product that would make enemies highly sensitive to sunlight, and another that would make bees particularly aggressive and prone to attack humans.

But Edward Hammond, of the Sunshine Project, insists the Pentagon is not being truthful. "These statements are untrue," he said. "The proposal was not rejected out of hand. It has received further consideration."

Hammond says the concept was included in a promotional CD-ROM on non-lethal weapons in 2000 and was submitted to the National Academies of Science the following year.

Bloggers are now having a field day with the love weapon.

"If we have a spare gay bomb, why not drop one in the mountains of Afghanistan?" asked one blogger.

"The idiot who came up with the idea really should be bitchslapped and forced to listen to Judy Garland records for the rest of his life," Ed Brayton wrote on the Huffington Post Web site.

But not everyone is amused.

"My sense is that the story speaks to the Pentagon's outdated ideas about sexuality, and about the relationship between sexuality and being a good soldier," said Aaron Belkin, a political analyst at the University of California in Santa Barbara.

"To suppose that spraying someone with a chemical can make them gay is ludicrous, and to suppose that making someone gay will turn them into a bad soldier is ludicrous as well."

In March, General Peter Pace, the chairman of the armed forces' Joint Chiefs of Staff, called homosexuality "immoral" in an interview with the Chicago Tribune that stirred renewed controversy and rekindled debate over legislation allowing homosexuals in the military as long as they did not discuss their sexual orientation. AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE