{"id":6158,"date":"2011-05-09T23:16:31","date_gmt":"2011-05-10T06:16:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=6158"},"modified":"2011-05-09T23:16:31","modified_gmt":"2011-05-10T06:16:31","slug":"full-steam-ahead-on-dadt-repeal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=6158","title":{"rendered":"Full Steam Ahead on DADT Repeal"},"content":{"rendered":"

First some background, from a post I wrote<\/a> on 30 November 2010:<\/p>\n

Yesterday, listening to an NPR report on the DoD\u2019s Don\u2019t Ask\/Don\u2019t Tell survey<\/a> of military personnel, it hit me that if gays are permitted to openly serve, the thorny issue of same-sex marriage will soon follow.<\/p>\n

I probably don\u2019t know what I\u2019m talking about, but I don\u2019t believe federal civil service employees can claim benefits for spouses unless they\u2019re legally married.\u00a0 Six states<\/a> currently allow and recognize gay marriages.\u00a0 That suggests to me that the same-sex spouse of a federal employee who was legally married in, say, Massachusetts, would be eligible for benefits, but that the domestic partner of a federal employee from Illinois, where gay marriage is still illegal, would not be.<\/p>\n

Would it work that way in the military?\u00a0 You can have a same-sex spouse . . . and all the benefits other married couples receive in the military, which are many . . . but only if you were legally married in one of the six states that allow gay marriage?\u00a0 What if you were legally married in Massachusetts but are now posted to a military base in Illinois?\u00a0 What if you are posted overseas to a country that persecutes gays?*<\/p>\n

And if the military does allow gays to openly serve (however this may come about, through congressional action, executive order, or a unilateral move by the DoD itself), it will inevitably permit at least some gay members to marry and claim benefits for their spouses.\u00a0 Will this help move things along in the 44 states where gay marriage is still illegal?\u00a0 Or will it put pressure on the president, the congress, or the courts to override state laws and declare same-sex marriage legal across the land?\u00a0 One place to look would be the racial integration of the military back in the late 1940s.\u00a0 Did the integration of the military change things in any of the states where segregation was still practiced?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 Did the federal government finally override state laws and make segregation illegal?\u00a0 Yes.<\/p>\n

The more I think about it, the more I realize how big a deal repealing DADT is going to be.<\/p>\n

Of course, the really big deal, at least to John McCain and his pals, is what happens when same-sex couples start showing up at NCO and officers\u2019 clubs . . . holy shit!\u00a0 Truly the end times are upon us.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, John McCain, you’d better go to battle stations, ’cause those torpedoey-lookin’ streaks coming across the water toward your bow?\u00a0 You guessed it!\u00a0 From today’s news: Navy chaplains cleared to perform gay marriages<\/a>!<\/p>\n

Damn, it’s nice to be right once in a while!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First some background, from a post I wrote on 30 November 2010: Yesterday, listening to an NPR report on the DoD\u2019s Don\u2019t Ask\/Don\u2019t Tell survey of military personnel, it hit me that if gays are permitted to openly serve, the thorny issue of same-sex marriage will soon follow. I probably don\u2019t know what I\u2019m talking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-military"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6158"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6162,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6158\/revisions\/6162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}