I’m glad to know that every single one of the non-hypocritical men and women in our armed forces is obeying every single part of the UCMJ, including Article 125.
Just a reminder that this is premiering tonight.
The problem I have is that the Clinton Administration changed policy without changing the law. DADT is NOT law. The bars against homosexuality have remained on the books, and that’s the problem. DADT is a policy that tries to circumvent the law by acting like a toddler: closing its eyes tight, covering its ears, and going “nananananana.”
The UCMJ needs to be changed to remove the bar against homosexuality. Congress needs to get off it’s arse and change it.
IMNSHO DADT was an attempt to garner the benefits of changing the UCMJ without having to pay the political cost to make the real changes. And, in the end, hurts the cause for which it has been promoted as a compromise solution. Without DADT I would like to think there would have been more support before now to change the UCMJ.
Then again, I had been the fool who hoped that the one good thing coming from the rat’s nest of idiocy in Albany this year would be legalizing gay marriage here. It was going to be my silver lining for how the bastards were going to rape the state’s monetary policy. No such luck. Lousy homophobes care more about denying civil rights than about sensible budget practices.
Despite Republican rhetoric, no one ever got votes talking about budget practices (cf. Paul Tsongas). Sex sells, especially when it’s icky homosexual sex.
Which is why my state’s budget is up 8% over last year, with revenues projected to be down 20%. Which leaves me pissed.
Thing is, I don’t think the UCMJ actually bars “homosexuality”, does it? Article 125 states that “Any person subject to this chapter who engages in unnatural carnal copulation with another person of the same or opposite sex or with an animal is guilty of sodomy.”
Now, if they just enforced that article–and tossed, what, 90% of our armed forces into the brig?–then, by God, Congress would have to sit up and take notice.
I don’t recall all the articles of the UCMJ explicitly, and would have to do a detailed reading to verify whether homosexuality is or is not forbidden beyond Article 125. It does seem you’re correct that homosexuality isn’t mentioned specifically, but there are a couple other articles that can be brought to bear against people who have gone beyond what DADT is able to protect. Article 120k: Rape, sexual assault and other sexual misconduct: Indecent Act would also have been included charges. I don’t see a definition anywhere for what constitutes an indecent act. Anymore than there is a specific definition of what unnatural copulation might be. (I agree that in most people’s minds that’s anal sex, but I believe that there is some room to argue that anything but missionary sex might be sodomy.)
What I do recall is at least one point in my enlistment papers where I had to sign that I was not, nor had I ever been, a homosexual. That clause made it clear that being a homosexual would be a breach of contract. This was in 1989, I can’t say whether the contract remains the same today.
The point remains, that if Congress gets off it’s posterior, they can amend Article 125 out of existence. Or change it to prohibit simply bestiality. Personally, I’d much prefer that to leaving Article 125 unchanged. Since, as you say, there are a large number of people who are in violation of it. (I have no idea whether 90% is an accurate number, but I agree it’s large.)
The Manual for Courts-Martial (Warning: Large PDF file) specifies that “unnatural carnal copulation” includes oral as well as anal sex (“It is unnatural carnal copulation for a person to take into that person’s mouth or anus the sexual organ of another person or of an animal; or to place that person’s sexual organ in the mouth or anus of another person or of an animal; or to have carnal copulation in any opening of the body, except the sexual parts, with another person; or to have carnal copulation with an animal”); hence my “90%” number, although I admit I pulled that percentage out of–ah–thin air. But I expect it’s pretty high.
I’m having a hard time reconciling DADT with this article about neonazis and klan cells in the military: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/06/15/neo_nazis_army/print.html
I mean, if gays are bad for morale I can’t imagine klansmen being reassuring