The National Institute of Military Justice (a non-profit associated with American University, not the U.S. government) and the American Bar Association’s Military Law Committee just released a report recommending the U.S. military repeal Article 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. That’s the one that deals with sodomy. It has Servicemembers United, the LGBT soldier organization, “applauding” the move. SU exec director Alexander Nicholson says, “Prohibitions on private sexual behavior between consenting adults have been eliminated for civilian Americans, and there is no reason that the men and women defending our freedom should be denied that liberty for themselves.” Is this reason to get excited?
Maybe!
But this same recommendation was made in 2001 — and it was sent to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Democratic Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Neither did much about it. (The panel that made the suggestion, however, was different.)
Sure, Obama is not Bush, yadda ya. But any movement on repealing the sodomy ban would be too intertwined with repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell that either both, or neither will be done. And as you might have heard, the president is kind of busy right now.
How about we take this to the next level?
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