Gay News
Two links today in regards to the recent repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. In one sent by Parachute Cutie,; the Department of Defense is paying an average of $14,000/per to folks who were booted out of the military for not following the simple restrictions of DADT says Associated Press;
The federal government has agreed to pay $2.4 million to dozens of gay troops who were discharged and denied full separation pay under the pre-2011 “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, according to a new court settlement.
The class-action lawsuit was spearheaded by the American Civil Liberties Union and filed in 2010 on behalf of about 181 gay troops who were honorably discharged for violating the military’s ban on gays serving openly in uniform.
I don’t remember the rum-runners getting forgiven for plying their illicit trade after Prohibition ended. All they had to do was keep their mouths shut about their particular sexual preference, and they couldn’t…now they get to cash in on it.
Jerry920 sends the news that the Marines have decided that same sex couples should be able to join the spouses groups, says NBC;
NBC News reported Dec. 14 that Ashley Broadway, the newlywed wife of Lt. Col. Heather Mack, was blocked from joining the spouses club at Fort Bragg, N.C., sparking accusations from a national military spouses organization that Broadway was being blackballed only because she is a lesbian.
The Marine memo, issued Tuesday, described the Fort Bragg club’s stance as having “caused quite a stir” and added, “We do not want a story like this developing in our backyard,” confirmed Capt. Eric Flanagan, a Marine Corps spokesman.
I’m sure that’s a good way to destroy the spouses’ clubs and support groups. Folks will probably pull stakes and leave the groups…I’m just saying.
Category: Marine Corps, Military issues
I don’t know, Jonn.. If they are operating on the base, the exclusion of same sex spouses would probably open them up to a lawsuit.
Now, I haven’t been a member of a spouse club since 2005 and I only did that as a favor to a friend. Not sure how much participation the clubs get these days.
I didn’t particularly enjoy the spouses clubs however it’s fair to point out that they usually do things like give scholarships to deserving military kids.
There are very few grunts who are willing to work around these fruits, even the ones who are okay with it in the civilian sector. I’ve been in this profession for close to 13 years and I can’t really recall a grunt who accepts this. Getting rid of DADT was the worst things the military could do; they are slowing breaking us down to a bunch of babies. Next thing you know they will have co-ed rooms, Marines will be issued skinny jeans and boot camp will be optional.
A lesbian woman named Broadway? Shocking.
They can pay them all $1.4 million apiece as far as I am concerned if they would just STFU and go away!
The angry Gay Mafia will continue to scold and lecture the rest of us who just want to serve in the military without bowing to the self-serving sexual perversions of some 1% of the population.
I hope they enjoy the $14,000. And I would expect the Westchester paper to provide the name and address of every gay member who accepts the money too.
ACLU…no surprise. I guess being honorably discharged isn’t enough. This makes me sick. They violated a regulation.
If gays didnt flaunt the fact that they are gay in your face 24/7, this would not be an issue. Ive never really never met any straight people flaunt the fact that they are straight
As much as I supported the repeal of DADT, this is ridiculous. Retroactive compensation for a change in policy sets a heinous precedence.
#7, for example someone who is discharged for failing to meet height/weight/tape would now presumably be eligible for a payout if the standards are later lowered past the point they were at at the time of their discharge.
I was wondering how much of the 2.4 million the aclu will get.
@7 agreed, I have no quarrel about homosexuals one way or another including whether they marry…however paying them a settlement fee indicates to others that breaking the rules isn’t a problem as long as you are a member of one of the victim classes…..there should be no special rules for gays, nor any special exceptions. You break the rules as they are currently you get your ass tossed out and stop b1tching.
It should be noted I am completely opposed to hate crime laws as well. A crime is a crime, if I beat you up because you are gay/minority as opposed to just wanting your wallet why is one more reprehensible than the other? A crime is a crime is a crime….the status of the victim should be irrelevant under the law as should that of the perpetrator.
Will they retroactively “draft” all those who claimed homosexuality and were not drafted for that reason?
As to gay “partners” joining spouse support groups. The Military does not recognize gay marriage and as such does not provide benefits for gay partners. Nor do they provide benefits for girlfriends or boyfriends of heterosexuals who happen to cohabitate. Do they get the same recognition?
If they ever legalize pot are they going to pay every single person that got the boot for popping hot on a piss test?
@12 Dang…they’d be paying billions.
I’m sure that’s a good way to destroy the spouses’ clubs and support groups. Folks will probably pull stakes and leave the groups…I’m just saying.
I have a number of friends who are passionate about gay marriage, and when we discuss it I almost always point out that it’s already legal for gay people to marry each other since clergy who are willing to officiate for them are becoming more and more common. But getting somebody to say they’re married won’t make people who think gay marriage is absurd take them any more seriously. This is kind of an extension of that. I fully expect that they’ll be able to force the spouse’s club to accept them. What they won’t be able to do is force the straight spouses who think gay marriage is silly to remain members of a group that doesn’t share their beliefs.
The whole paying people for getting out under don’t ask don’t tell is crap. While I was stationed at Ft. Campbell it was during the time that some one was killed over sexual preference. Just months later all a turd had to do was go to a chaplain or his chain of command and claim to be gay, and out of the Army they went. Now this is saying that my tax dollars are gonna pay him for disgracing my military with what could be a lie. Please let there be some justice in this. If you joined the military and you know there is a don’t ask don’t tell policy then whose fault is it that you can’t keep your own mouth shut. The tax payers I guess.
Or paying people for getting tossed for ARI’s then staying sober, civil involvement that got expunged after separation, dipping your dick in someone not your wife (or husband–can’t be discriminatory now) and divorcing them, etc., etc., etc…
This is such a shitty precedent I can’t even find the words.
Simply put. If you joined the military during don’t ask don’t tell. Why is it my fault you can’t shut your mouth? How is it discriminating if no one is even confronting you about it? Thanks to some bleeding heart somewhere I’ll end up footing the bill after I already had to take up the slack of your big mouth.
Ok sorry guys I’m ranting a little. It’s just this crap really pisses me off. It’s kinda like the guy that’s always on profile and going to sick call.
I wonder if the lesbian who tried to use her sudden onset lesbianism to get out of a deployment will get her thirty pieces of silver, too. the last I heard Bethany Smith/Skyler James was still in Canada.
I say disband the “official” club and just “happen” to meet at the Appleby’s at a local watering hole every first Tuesday!? No one can make you talk to someone in a public house! I wish i could say that I’m surprised that the ACLU is behind all this mess but sadly I’m not. It’s bad enough we have a couple of lawyers in the family but if they were ACLU lawyers I’d have to take my evil .38 and ventilate them a little bit!? I guess ‘freedom to force my way in somewhere I’m not wanted’ trumps ‘freedom of association’, huh?
@15, I was at Campbell when that happened. Once a kid said they were gay they were out of the Army in 3 days. Those of us that had to excort them while they cleared had a memo signed by the CG that put you in front of every line.
The ironic thing about PFC Winchell getting killed “because he was gay” was that it wasn’t known he was gay until after he was killed. The kid got killed because he won a fist fight at a kegger and the dipshit that he beat couldn’t handle the loss.
The whole paying people for getting out under don’t ask don’t tell is crap.
Absolutely. This is one of those “lawsuits” that the government invited from Gay Rights groups so they could settle it out of court and give the win and a big pile of money to the ACLU. They do it with environmental and other leftwing pressure groups all the time.
But…
If service people cannot handle openly serving gays and their families in the structure, and will threaten to destroy the support groups over it, then they need to just get out of the Service. I’m tired of people bashing guys who do their jobs. There used to be the same reluctance towards other groups of citizens desire to serve that were just as wrong-headed.
As far as that “rubbing your nose” in their gayness: tell me, does your CDR have a picture of his family on his desk? Do you wear a wedding ring from your wife or husband while in uniform? DO you show pics of your wife or hubby to your buddies?
How is that not “rubbing their nose in your sexuality”? Howe does that square with a gay person being told he better keep it to himself?
The adolescent level reactions to openly serving gay people need to be stowed away. The gays in my unit with Airborne and other assorted snake eater badges and combat patches aren’t any less deserving of what they were able to earn.
Don’t confuse the gay radicals and no-loads with the patriots is all I’m saying. I knew straight guys that smoked weed to try to get out of deployments.
@21 Well Said
@ 20 yeah it did do a favor to the unit at the same time though because it got those that realized they didn’t have what it take to save the military the trouble of finding another way to get rid of them. To be honest I think right after the Winchell event was a great time for the Army to lose many dirtbag soldiers. Of course when I say many I actually mean one guy I knew that went that route. Man was he a piece of work.
The funnier thing is the chain of command knew better, but they were glad to be rid of him as well. It made the paperwork quicker I guess.
@ 21 the point I was getting at is more the act of the fraud and the dirtbags that stand to benefit from it.
I knew gay guys in the military. They did the job and did it well. I don’t care about orientation. I care about people who once abused the system to their own gain hitting me in the pocket book for a slight that was never given to them. They slighted themselves.
Private: ” I can’t go to Air Assault school or go to the field anymore sir. ”
Officer: Why not?
Private: I’m gay.
Officer: Gather your stuff you’ll be home soon.
@23, I think we had around 19 guys in the BDE all a sudden become gay that first week.
@26 Damn!
My company lost the one guy that I remember. As far as anything else goes since I was a private then was a lot of rumor and speculation.
Literally speaking, it is quite impossible to black ball a lesbian!
On a related note: I served on active duty continuously from 1979 – 1989. During that period not much gay talk and everyone just did therir jobs.
The Clinton pay pack to the Gay and Lesbian lobby aka DADT and the Obama repeal have been bad for the military.
We have seen too many good careers destroyed, many others cut short, and now … it is just another entitlement for a group of people.
I just don’t care what side of the bed you exit, whether you are a DEM or REP, who you might be banging, what God you believe in … I just want to know that when the call is made … you get the job done. PERIOD!
@ 28 agreed. I feel for the ones that were slighted, but I refuse to think we will reward frauds.
@28 actually the artificial components seem to be in high demand, just not the natural use….
“for even their women did change the natural use”
@ 30 … I am a former Boiler Tech (not that quick). I think I know what you mean!
I don’t know that having gay and lesbian spouses in the groups will destroy them; y’all have to remember that there are alot more youngins in the military today than old crotchety people. The younger generation generally has a more tolerant view towards homosexuals, married or not. I’ve had several gay dudes in my divisions (before DADT was repealed) and very possibily had one or two in my DETs when I went to Iraq…as long as they were good at their job, I reckones who they liked to go to bed with was their business.
As predicted the gay status within the military and now even out is simply a ruse to collect benefits and privileges. You can parade in gay porn wearing your uniform, participate in obviously political and obscene gay parades while in uniform, and now you’ll be compensated for disobeying orders resulting in your removal from the armed services.
Rules are only for those suckers that don’t belong to protected groups any longer.
I could look it up but I’m too lazy to do so right now. Is gay marriage recognized in North Carolina? I don’t think it is. So….how can a “spouses club” recognize a spouse who, by state law, isn’t?
Yeah, I get it. Let’s all get along. Like it or not rules are rules (which, of course can be changed). Just as I feel it is beyond rediculous to pay the gays who were kicked out prioer to DADT, I think it is equally as rediculous to allow (force the group to take them) folks into a group for the sake of political correctness.
Then again, I’m still pissed off (and I am female) that women butted themselves into men’s organizations. Actually I’m pissed off about a lot of things. Shocking to those who know me.
Insanity.
@11/rb325th: You ask, “Do they get the same recognition?”
Generally, the answer is “NO”. One thing I can say about the military getting something right is that same-sex partners are not (and will not, as far as I can tell) be viewed equally as a married heterosexual couple. A gay couple can put each other on the SGLI, but that’s about the extent of it. No BAH w/ dependents, etc. Not sure how that works out if a gay couple adopts a kid as I haven’t heard of it, otherwise, presumably, the gay service-member could claim the kid and perhaps gain assignment to base housing based on adopted kid (dependency status), and the “partner” would eventually move in – but no TRICARE or other benefits. Same goes with PCS assignments. If two gay military members are serving in the same geo-location, and one gets orders, off he (or she) goes, while the other stays put. Emergency leave? It’s probably up to the discretion of the commander to let one gay military member to home to tend to the other. Yes, I learned all of this at a mandatory Officer/SNCO group hug meeting at the base theater, just prior to the repeal being enacted.
…and no, I’m not gay.
The armed forces had to suck it up on this whole gay thing, so it makes sense that spouses have to suck it up as well. (heh, phrasing) Really I don’t mind the idea of gay families getting support, though. Is there some kind of not-quite-marriage, more-than-roomates, military-recognized bonding process? I’m guessing that once there is, there will need to be all kinds of housing allowances, cross-country moves, etc. So much for going stealth, the whole command knows then.
wow, those pot smokers up in Colorado that got arrested must be organizing one massive class action now that its legal there.
At my last unit we had an E-4 reenlist and pocket his 10 G bonus. He loaned the E-6 he worked for a couple of grand. The E-6 wanted to go into Criminal Investigations and he accused the E-4 of being Gay. The guy never admitted the charge, but he never really denied it either. Needles to say the 3rd class was discharged at the convenience of the government. And, he got to keep the bonus money. They both got what they wanted and command never tripped to the scam.
@ #32: Being one of the old farts I can tell you that back in the day, at least among the folks I worked with, no one cared one whit as long as you did your job. The younger generation is more tolerant? Of what exactly??
I guess maybe we were intolerant – we expected people to do their jobs and not find excuses to not do the job. Silly, weren’t we?
All kidding aside, be careful about buying some of the lies that you are being told about us oldsters. There is a backlash going on because there are so many things which we always considered private being forced upon us which have nothing to do with orientation.
Maybe if the military as a whole could get over being obsessed with sex, like a bunch of six year olds that just discovered the differences between men and women, and get its collective mind on doing the job at hand, this nonsense will cease to be an issue.
I am, frankly, bored to tears with this obsession with other people’s sex lives.
Cross posted this (summarized of coursed) onto the NCO Net on AKO. Can’t wait to see how the PC crowd defends this.
@41 – Amen to that. I’m equally as disinterested in the antics of Honey Boo Boo, those Kardashian girls, people in Jersey Shore, rich housewives who have nothing else to do with their lives, and anything else that seems to capture the interest of today’s society – especially anything going on in Hollywood or with the music industry. I think I’ve pretty much covered all of it.
43–you might have covered Bravo Channel, but that’s about it.
Only 499 more channels to go.
@43 It’s been said you can gauge a civilization by its’ culture. Ours has become one that worships the worst traits among us rather than the best. Fat, lazy buffoons on reality TV, fornicators and drunks, doped up millionaire athletes, politicians who lie every day, religious leaders with no morality whatsoever…those are the celebrities we as a nation pay homage to. I hope that changes, but if we are gauging our civilization based on that, I would dare say we are apparently in some decline…
I for one will not participate in the decline, but I am well aware I am in the minority. The Kardashian shows are among the highest rated shows on that network….I’m still not clear what constituted their “celebrity” status in the first place, nor am I clear what Honey Boo Boo is about except a little fat kid and a bunch of lazy stupid fat parents…I guess I should have known that when poker became a sport to be broadcasted we were doomed to be a nation of sit on your 4ss morons who think flipping cards over is some kind of physical activity.
A bunch of amoral j3rkoffs in California that the nation defines as celebrities lecturing us on how to conduct ourselves, and what the 1st and 2nd amendments actually mean. The irony is so thick on this I have few words to express my frustration.