DoD begins sexual orientation training
Rowan Scarborough at the Washington Times reports that the Pentagon has begun mailing instructional material to members of the military to begin their sensitivity training in regards to the upcoming withdrawal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. Since commanders are the first targets of this training, the Marines partially released some of their material, while the intend to publically release the entire package on April Fools Day. Here’s a sample;
“Situation,” it begins. “You are the Executive Officer of your unit. While shopping at the local mall over the weekend, you observe two junior male Marines in appropriate civilian attire assigned to your unit kissing and hugging in the food court.
“Issue: Standards of Conduct. Is this within standards of personal and professional conduct?”
The answer to Marines: “If the observed behavior crosses acceptable boundaries as defined in the standards of conduct for your unit and the Marine Corps, then an appropriate correction should be made. Your assessment should be made without regard to sexual orientation.”
A separate training guide answers 23 frequently asked questions, such as “is consensual sodomy still a punishable offense under the Uniform Code of Military Justice?”
Answer: “The U.S. Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces found that private, consensual sexual activity, to include consensual sodomy, regardless of sexual orientation, is a protected liberty under the Fourteenth Amendment.”
So that answers a lot of question you folks had.
Read more at the Washington Times.
Category: Military issues
Commanders may honor a request not to shower with known gay service members. “Marines are expected to obey lawful orders and could be subject to discipline or adverse administrative action if they refuse orders, even if such refusal is based on strong, sincerely held, moral or religious beliefs,” the briefing states.
May honor a request, but not required to honor a request to shower separately…..interesting.
We believe training can be wrapped up by the end of next month, especially given the fact that there will be an additional 60 days for training that may take place after certification.”
Additional training (60 days worth) beyond the initial…..interesting.
Soldiers may not seek an early discharge because they do not want to live or serve with gays.
Cannot separate due to “strong, sincerely held, moral or religious beliefs”………interesting.
A “speaker’s note” accompanying the Army slides states, “This brief is NOT an attempt to change anyone’s opinion or beliefs about the subject of homosexuality. However, we as an Army must always remember our Army values and respect each other’s beliefs in order to accomplish the mission.”
Quite a lot of “interestings”. Theory versus reality should prove very “interesting.”
There’s a curse that goes like this:
“May you live in interesting times.”
Interesting…
“is consensual sodomy still a punishable offense under the Uniform Code of Military Justice?”
Knowing full well of course, that many of the SCOTUS decisions have little to no bearing on whether or not a person is punishable under the UCMJ, the operative phrase should not be:
“The U.S. Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces found that private, consensual sexual activity, to include consensual sodomy, regardless of sexual orientation, is a protected liberty under the Fourteenth Amendment.”
…but rather,
…penetration, however slight, is sufficient to complete the offense.”
Now knowing that if a heterosexual couple (both in uniform) can have their pee-pee and va-jay-jays smashed for PDA’s, anyone here actually think that Brucie and Stevie are gonna take their punishment for a similar offense without crying all butt-hurt to the nearest sympathetic media outlet?
Me either.
“…penetration, however slight, is sufficient to complete the offense.”
is made null by the SCOTUS decision in Lawrence & Garner v. State of Texas.
I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, it just is.
From the Army G3 during my mandatory class, the UCMJ for sodomy will have to be changed to forcible.
>SCOTUS decision in Lawrence & Garner v. State of Texas
Actually Jacobite it was the military court of appeals that ruled that sodomy couldn’t be used in a DADT case, and the case actually involved heterosexuals-although it wouldn’t matter the orientation. They said that you could still go after them if the relationship affected discipline i.e., fraternization… They used Lawrence as their reasoning, but Lawrence did not automatically null sodomy in the UCMJ. The military is a different entity and SCOTUS has historically treated it as such.
melle,
While they are different entities, no ruling of this nature on the part of the military will stand a full on legal challenge if it runs afoul of a SCOTUS ruling. I’ve read the military decision in the case you are referring to, and yes, it was the military opinion that the UCMJ provisions concerning sodomy could not stand as written in light of the SCOTUS decision in Lawrence vs. State of Texas. My point was that simple evidence of sodomy is no longer sufficient for prosecution, and that is a direct result of L. vs. S. of T.
Beyond the nuances of legal precedences, the training has been expected.
Next battle to lose: genderally-confused (to be polite) servicemembers
Does anyone have any info on actual sodomy convictions? How often is the staute even used, because lord knows people in the military have oral and anal sex all the time.
J,
Those are called “Promotion Boards.”
LMFAO!!!! A spew alert would have been nice with that last one Dave, got coffee everyhere! lol
J,
There were at least three cases in sucession that the appeals court ruled on regarding this issue.. Two were heterosexual couples.. (U.S. v. Marcum, U.S. v. Bullocks, & U.S. v. Meno) I would venture to guess like with most homosexual?DADT cases though there were other issues going on, and that is just the charge that was the easiest to stick and to bring.
Jacobite,
>no ruling of this nature on the part of the military will stand a full on legal challenge if it runs afoul of a SCOTUS ruling.
Actually you are wrong…Civilian rights/military rights are sometimes recognized as separate. Lawrence v. Texas did not immediately null the UCMJ. The military court did it based on SCOTUS’s decision, but many things happen in the military that wouldn’t happen in the civilian legal world. Military members cede some constitutional rights even the basic most fundamental ones i.e., speech…. and apparently based on the above now religion…We are also not talking about someone getting arrested for sodomy- we are talking about someone losing their position— apples and oranges.
Ok, comparing apples and apples (sodomy being the ‘nature’ of the charge I think it’s fair to mandate strictly examples of interpersonal relationships, not discipline etc.) can you provide me with examples where a military ruling would have run afoul of a SCOTUS ruling and stood?
It’s also my understanding that the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces decisions are subject to review by the SCOTUS under the guide lines of Article 67a of the UCMJ as provided for by section 1259 of Title 28?
>can you provide me with examples where a military ruling would have run afoul of a SCOTUS ruling and stood?
SIGH– How about the whole military justice system runs afoul of the civilian justice system? Due process is completely different in each system…Jurisdictional authority(no matter where the crime occurred- servicemembers are subject to UCMJ)- you can be prosecuted by the military system AND the civilian system even though that is double jeopardy and is unconstitutional..
>Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces decisions are subject to review by the SCOTUS under the guide lines of Article 67a of the
Of course SCOTUS can review the court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, but generally SCOTUS acknowledges that most military UCMJ matters are different than civilian matters. Historically the two didn’t meet much.. SCOTUS left the military to its own matters.
>can you provide me with examples where a military ruling would have run afoul of a SCOTUS ruling and stood?
Can you provide me with a SCOTUS ruling that actually overturned a fraternization, sodomy, or DADT charge based on privacy or Lawrence v. Texas?
Jacobite,
BTW, One of the reasons that SCOTUS does not get involved in military matters, and you are only finding recent examples of rulings that leak into that areas i.e., GITMO… is that the military falls under the Executive Branch. Up until, most SCOTUS justices respected the checks and balance systems. Why do you think there was such an outcry over SCOTUS’s ruling on the GITMO detainee’s? Usually they didn’t check the other branches unless there were aggregious cases such as Korematsu v. United States.
Damn, back in ’64 we had a Sp4 given a discharge for choking his chicken every night in the barracks. It got so bad the LT had to go to his room and check his bunk for ‘nasty socks’ and document it. Now we’ve got this crap? My gosh, I won’t ask … tha’s what blanket parties are for!!!
Just to be on the safe side, I HOPE blanket parties are still the same as in the 60s …
Ogling a female is sexual harrasment, but having to shower with a meat-gazing gay dude isn’t? WTF, over?
Sodomy is ok, but what about consentual oral sex.
Rich, according to the letter of the law, consensual oral sex IS sodomy. Look it up.
To the ‘moral majority’ anything other than missionary style sex for the purposes of procreation is sodomy.
>To the ‘moral majority’ anything other than missionary style sex for the purposes of procreation is sodomy.
LOL–No, to the people you pigeon-hole and make assumptions about(devout,evangelical Christians) most are open sexually if it is in the context of a marital relationship.
Also Jacobite.. just so you know SCOTUS declined to hear a challenge to DADT in 2009 in Pietrangelo v. Gates.
Lol, sorry but yes, many state’s sodomy laws covered married couples as well un-married regardless of how ‘open sexually’ their private lives were or are.
What I’m discussing are not assumptions, they’re old facts, the existence of the laws themselves being the only evidence needed. And if by ‘pigeon-holing’ you mean pointing out a particular stance espoused, sometimes very loudly, by a specific group of folks, you’re only half correct. While you mistakenly ‘assumed’ I was talking about the 1980’s ‘pop-culture’ Moral Majority (capitalized in this instance since that would refer to the Falwell named political machine, the ‘devout,evangelical Christians’ you refer to), I’m not, I’m talking about the aggregate of all those people in the country who at one time thought it was a good idea to foist their bedroom moral strictures on the country, and in many ways still attempt to do so. I believe the Catholics in this country would probably out number the Fundamentalists and/or Evangelicals in this context, but I’m including them all.
Make no mistake, I don’t have any personal ax to grind in this with any specific religious group, I just value personal privacy and freedoms in a very distinctly libertarian fashion. Maintaining an accurate historic record of why things were the way they were, and are the way they are, helps.
SCOTUS declining to hear a case is not evidence of their inability to do so. DADT was not the subject of my response to Sparky anyway; sodomy was, so I’m curious why you bring that up.
>DADT was not the subject of my response to Sparky anyway; sodomy was, so I’m curious why you bring that up.
Because Sparky, Pietrangelo used Lawrence v. Texas as his defense… Don’t you think if SCOTUS thought it had merits they would have taken the case?
Lol, I’m not Sparky.
You’re losing me here, I’m still not seeing how that relates to my reply to NHSparky in #3 above concerning sodomy, which is what kicked off yours and mine’s entire discussion.
>You’re losing me here, I’m still not seeing how that relates to my reply to NHSparky in #3 above concerning sodomy, which is what kicked off yours and mine’s entire discussion
LMAO–sorry I thought you were calling me sparky and I got a little snarky…I like the back and forth, but I thought you were being in condescending.. I apologize..he he.
It relates to the post, because DADT also involves personsal relationships which you maintain are a constitutional right in the military. It is the same concept. Pietrangelo relations were off base etc. The reason you say that SCOTUS would nullify sodomy laws, and yet they didn’t see merit to this case just like I doubt they would have seen merits to any of the sodomy cases. I guess we are going to have agree to disagree though.
It’s ok, I thought that might be the case. I enjoy the back and forth as well, the legalities and intricacies of it are fascinating to me.
I think we’re probably closer in view than it appears, I may be coming across as holding a broader position on this than I actually do, I recognize the narrowness with which Lawrence is supposed to be interpreted and really don’t think it presented a larger threat to DADT, but I do think it takes a narrow line of behavior (that’s engaged in both heterosexually and homosexually) off the playing field as an excuse for prosecution when other supporting factors for prosecution can’t be demonstrated.