Was this really necessary?
U.S. Airforce Sgt discharged over lesbian relationship! <<< Link, click here to read story.
Was this really necessary?
U.S. Airforce Sgt discharged over lesbian relationship! <<< Link, click here to read story.
"Trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty!" John Adams 1772
Snuffy / Ted
This topic might be a little too edgy for NewsHawks, but I think she has a valid case against the Police Dept. for revealing her relationship to the Air Force.
I don't think it was.....Originally Posted by Snuffy
Huub
I don't think it was necessary either. It reminds me of that guy of the Belgian special forces (sort of...can't say we have a decent army here) who was officially married as first gay commando, it was in the news for a while a couple of years ago.
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I thought the most entertaining part of that was the name of the Exec Director of the ACLU-SD. The guy's last name is Doody! If the guy's a lawyer, then if fits like a glove!
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As I mentioned elsewhere - It was much more than "not necessary". It was absolutely NOT the job of civilian law enforcement to make such a notification to the AF simply because they incidentally noticed a marriage certificate - completely unrelated to their purpose for being there. It was a malicious act on the part of the local police that cost a higly trained, veteran weapons systems specialist her career in the AF. Who wins here ?
No one. Not the AF, our society and certainly not her. Even as a former police officer, I would LOVE to be her attorney and vigorously prosecute this department in civil court.
"Those who live by the sword are shot by those who don't"
it was uncalled for and vindictive. i'm not pro-gay but they cost this woman her career when they had no right. i hope she sues for big buck, and wins.
Whether you agree or not with gays in the military,she followed the rules to the letter of don't ask,don't tell. As such this is a serious invasion of her privacy and I hope she runs these clowns into the ground.
Of course I know what I'm doing,gee whiz......ouch,owwwww
Failure of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"...
Figures it happened in Rapid City.
Seem to be a lot of failures out there recently.
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If we cannot talk about the IRS coming after four cents, then we cannot talk about this topic -- and that's a 100% fact!
Ken
i have no argument with that, although i must admit, i often have this compulsion to watch threads like these and see how long they last. to the credit of the members, i am frequently surprised.
yup, not right.
It must be mentioned that in USAF towns, law enforcement will tell the USAF anything and vice versa. They call it a mutually beneficial relationship, but that's bull. If you're USAF and dealing with the law over something that you have no fault in, like a ticket or even an arrest, they'll still call the base and make sure your 1st Sgt knows. Then, no matter what you did or didn't do wrong, you're still in huge trouble and it has a gigantic effect on your career. Most USAF bases' law enforcement front desks call the jails once an hour to ask if there are any military personnel inside.
I'm not super pro-gay either, but our rights are rapidly diminishing everywhere.
Hold on a second.
Let's not lose sight of the fact that her domestic partner was a felony fugitive from justice and this standing Air Force NCO refused to cooperate with law enforcement.
Under the moral codes of being an NCO in the US military, her conduct was not in accordance with conduct becoming an NCO.
There was no presumption of privacy involved here.
She could have been subject to an Article 32 investigation for having material facts pertaining to a felony crime and refusing to bear witness. Considering this is the kind of fate she could have faced, with its associated general discharge or discharge under less than honorable conditions, to get the boot under honorable service status is relatively light treatment.
While civilians are not required to testify or cooperate with law enforcement, other than the Constitutional right to avoid self-incrimination, members of the US military are not accorded such privilege. In the military, if you know of a crime, you are obligated to report all you know to law enforcement.
In this duty, she failed miserably. Regardless of the circumstances, she got off light and should run quiet with her honorable discharge.
Ken
I would submit that this heightened sense of public accountability and scrutiny has a lot to do with the fact we handle powerful weapons. The public earns this higher accountability, and it is merely one aspect of duty we face when we raise the right hand and take the oath of office.
Whether you get drunk in public, earn a traffic citation, or refuse to cooperate with law enforcement in a felony investigation, as a mliitary member, your obligations remain clear. You are always required to keep good faith with the public and its institutions. This NCO did not. And in my view that's why she rightly was drummed out of the service. In my view, the police simply found a convenient option to exercise. In my view, the more honoralbe option should have been used by the USAF. Once it became known she refused to cooperate with law enforcement, her commander should have brought her into his office and made it clear where, as an NCO, her duty lay. If she refused to cooperate afterward, I would have started administrative action to result in her involuntary separation from the USAF.
Ken
aaaahhhhh,
so there's more to this story. Touche, good sir.
Hey All,
I think she should win her case against the police because a marriage certificate has nothing to do with being cooperative or not and there was no basis for reporting it to the Air Force. The cooperation issue should have been settled on it's own merits or lack thereof within the Air Force as described by Ken. The issues of cooperation and being gay should not be mixed to achieve a punishing result for the wrong reason. I do not know the Air Force policy on gays/lesbians revealed as such by third parties. That is a separate question.
-Ed-
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Now that we know the rest of the story, I would agree it was proper action if she was in fact failing to cooperate in a felony matter, Ken.
However, if the incident had only been based on a purely civil matter, where there was no criminal law jurisdiction, then frankly I still feel it would have been wrong.
But that's just my opinion.
"No, I'm not a good shot, but I shoot often." - Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt
There usually is more to the story..
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I've been doing a bit of reading around the issue as I was unaware what the USAF's policies were on the subject of gay relationships. Isn't this whole "don't ask, don't tell" policy rather archaic and liable to cause more problems than it solves?
A persons sexuality has no more bearing on their ability to do a job than their skin colour.
Apologies for the thread creep, but I was genuinely shocked when I found out that the USAF have such an apparently ludicrous policy in place.
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All kind of mute anyway....
She would have lost her clearance. She's obliged by virtue of having a clearance to inform the SSO of any status that could lead to her being manipulated by any outside agency or foreign government. In today's force, you can't hold a clearance, you can't do much of anything....
Incidentally, the SSO is not normally obliged to inform the commander on a report like this this unless there's another factor (there almost always is when the military pursues a homosexual related chapter).
Basic Flying Rules: "Try to stay in the middle of the air. Do not go near the edges of it. The edges of the air can be recognized by the appearance of ground, buildings, sea, trees and interstellar space. It is much more difficult to fly there."
Not really that ludicrous...the military is unique in that it can and does discriminate on a daily basis on almost everything: Height, weight, intellect, strength, endurance, vision, moral turpitude, political disposition, eye-hand coordination, memory....the list goes on and on....the military is one organization where all those things you've been told don't matter -- Matter.
(Now, onto my "barracks lawyer" mode...)
In any case, "don't ask don't tell" was imposed by the Clinton Administration, not the services (People seem to have short memories). The previous policy was that homosexuality was simply not allowed. To engage in homosexual activity was a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). Note, I said "engage"...you could actually be a confessed homosexual, but you could not "engage" in homosexual behavior. As a result homosexuality was only addressed to a minor degree and commanders were given a lot of options on how to deal with it. Oddly enough, there were fewer cases of homosexuals being put out of the service back in those "dark ages" than under the current policy.
"Don't Ask, Don't Tell" codified specific actions that commanders are now obliged to take regarding homosexual activity. Options previously available are now gone....the irony of course is that a change to that previous policy is exactly what various homosexual rights organizations pushed for. Sometimes you need to be careful what you ask for, because you'll get it.
Still, my own personal experience after 24 years of active service is that when a commander takes action to chapter (discharge) or discipline someone for homosexual activity, there is always something else involved. Gay rights activists like to point to "witch hunts". I never saw any.
You will note that in this example, as in every example I've run across....there's always a back story that somehow doesn't get told.
Basic Flying Rules: "Try to stay in the middle of the air. Do not go near the edges of it. The edges of the air can be recognized by the appearance of ground, buildings, sea, trees and interstellar space. It is much more difficult to fly there."
People get the wrong idea about the military's homosexual policies. Heterosexual cases make up almost all of the misconduct cases in the military. In a military environment, especially in war, we don't have time to worry about relationships an sexual behavior, and the rank system must be indebatable and absolute. It's not just Officers and Enlisted engaging in innapropriate relationships, either. It's men and women who've compromised the chain of command and rank structure within even the smallest of units. The military has a HUGE problem with SNCOs haveing crushes on our young 18 year old women, and the consequences are astronomical. Many positively outstanding young women with potential to command or be SNCOs have left the military after one term because they became tired of the negative repercussions from preferential or undue ill treatment.
We have a responsibility to uphold the military rank structure, and it has nothing to do with gay rights. The integration of women (while necessary) into many traditionally male jobs has opened an entire can of worms to deal with. The opponents of openly gay service (don't forget to say openly) aren't anti-gay, they foresee an absolute nightmare for innapropriate relationships.
side note: Gays aren't drummed out as much as you'd think they are. "Don't ask don't tell" is not a ban on gay service, it's a sort of 'keep it in your pants' order. I've known quite a few people who I flat out assumed were gay (and some verified) who did just fine in the USAF. Noone had a problem with them. It's the type of wacko that marches in parades naked and flaunts their sexuality in your face that will rip a unit apart, and OBVIOUSLY that is discouraged. And yes, the hyper-sexual wacko heterosexuals are booted out too.
Ah yes, I used to retain several of your type. At one point I probably practiced. Often, the only payment desired is a six-pack, and the counsel is highly valued. You only get into trouble when you rely on barracks lawyers to tell you when you're supposed to be somewhere, or get unit updates.
I will say one thing on this issue and leave it at that ...
If you take someone at their word who says he/she is gay, then by definition to require me to shower with the male homosexual or use a public restroom with same, is precisely the same as to require me as a married man to do the same with a woman not my wife.
Now, beyond all the jokes people can add, I want you to think very seriously on what I just said.
In private life, the requirement to share public shower and bathroom facilities simply does not exist. As a civilian you have total control over your private life. In the military this is absolutely not the case, especially when you are deployed.
This is why the military accepted (not that it had much choice) the "don't ask, don"t tell" policy. Because if it was kept confidential, it could not lead to any of the obvious rancor that my scenario listed above could cause.
Before people leap to a condemnation of a policy, they must first strive to fully understand the background.
Despite the Hollywood story treatment like that played out in Starship Troopers, men and women playing slap and tickle in a shower isn't promoting proper military discipline. And again, despite the obvious "insert joke here" reply, the situation isn't funny for the people who have to actually command units, and who's phones already ring more often than not late at night with another call from another unit subordinate who did something he/she should not have done. Add in the all-too-predictable fistfights and worse that would happen if a gay man/woman interacted with a straight man'woman, and it's a whole other layer of problems commanders don't currently have to deal with. Last I checked, the list of people who seek impossible jobs is pretty thin!
Commanders have more than enough headaches. Fighting a war is damn sure a hell of a headache and I would suggest anyone who doubts that try the hat on for size and see how he likes it!
Like most military people, what a person does in his or hers private life isn't of concern for me. If, that is, it doesn't affect the ability of my unit to perform its mission! If it does put hurdles in my ability as a commander to get the job done, then I want none of it thank you!
The military isn't a social laboratory! It's an institution of national defense and right now, business is booming!
It was hard enough logistically to rig up male/female shower and bathroom facilities at deployed locations. But, the military invested billions of dollars to make it happen. Now, when you can figure a way to parse gay men, gay women, straight men, and straight women into separate facilities, then we can talk about the social benefit of removing the "don't ask, don't tell" policy. About the only answer I have is 100% private shower/bathroom facilities. Now, you calculate the cost of doing that at every deployed location and we can talk about the value of this latest "social experiment" so many now are agitating for!
Howerver, no one articulating or demanding such a change has the foggiest notion of how to do it. They just claim other militaries already do it and leave it at that. It's not that simple.
Ken
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