The Man Next to Me
The Man Next to Me
and the One Next to Him
There are a few things I’m worried about in a combat situation. When it comes to the person next to me, I want to know that they are skilled and disciplined. That they won’t freeze or abandon the mission in a way that puts me at risk. That they will defend my life as I will theirs.
One thing that isn’t on my mind? Who that person is going home to at the end of their deployment.
Because it simply doesn’t matter as it relates to their capacity for military service.
Except that under former military law, it was MADE to matter. Quite deeply, in fact.
Effective February 1921, Article 93 of the Articles of War criminalized the mere act of sodomy, separate from the offense of assault with intent to commit sodomy. In May 1951, this broad prohibition was memorialized under Article 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), which expressly forbade sodomy amongst all military personnel as follows: "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. Penetration, however slight, is sufficient to complete the offence.”
(“However slight” = “just the tip”?)
The law is often unclear, but in this case, there can be no mistaking that these codes were meant to criminalize the mere fact of homosexuality.
It’s as brutish and invasive as it is unprincipled—that our military would allow gay men and women to serve and sacrifice in the name of freedom and democracy, while simultaneously depriving these servicemembers of the most basic of freedoms: to love who they love.
Even more shameful is that these laws remained in place until 2013, when President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014 into law and replaced the restriction against consensual sodomy with a law prohibiting forcible sodomy and bestiality. The UCMJ followed suit in 2016, striking consensual sodomy as a punishable offense.
10 years. Give or take, we have given gay servicemembers just 10 years of the freedom to be themselves, without fear of reprisal, since the formal establishment of our military in 1775.
Problem solved, right?
Well, no. Because when you build an institution on prejudiced policies, the roots remain long after the laws do.
In this context, the abolition of consensual sodomy laws has paved a clearer path forward for current gay servicemembers and those who want to serve. But the revised regulations weren’t retroactive in nature, and contained no mechanism by which to address the harm suffered by veterans under prior legislation.
And suffer they did. A recent California lawsuit alleges that our military “violated the constitutional rights of more than 35,000 LGBTQ veterans by failing to grant them honorable discharges after they were barred from serving because of their sexual orientation.” Not only could servicemembers be discharged due solely to their sexual orientation–good, decent people who served their country with honor, courage, and distinction–but the characterization of their discharge could also serve as a direct bar to VA benefits. In other words, veterans who served their country have been barred from “health care, tuition assistance, home loans, even the honor of a military burial.” In the case of Marine Tim Bergling, the government also deducted money from his tax returns as payback for the signing bonus he received when enlisting, despite the fact that he never acknowledged his sexual orientation while serving. Don’t ask, don’t tell, indeed.
This all speaks to why President Biden’s recent Proclamation on Certain Violations of Article 125 under the Uniform Code of Military Justice is so important to the integrity of our military. (I know, I know. GCV+F exists as an accountability mechanism for our country’s leaders but . . . when you’re right, you’re right. You did it, Joe!)
In June 2024, Biden granted a full and unconditional pardon “to individuals with court-martial convictions under former Article 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice for conduct that involved consensual, private acts with persons aged 18 or older.” Even then, the pardon is a solitary and independent measure which requires affected veterans to “apply to receive proof that their conviction has been erased, petition to have their discharges from the military upgraded and move to recover lost pay and benefits.”
In other words? The burden is on the victim to take corrective action, and studies suggest that only one in four eligible veterans will apply to the military review board for an upgrade in discharge status. It can be a burdensome and demeaning process, and it makes sense that some veterans aren’t willing to further engage with the very system that degraded their service.
Ultimately, Biden’s proclamation is a valuable first step towards remedying these wrongs. But I’ve seen far too many cases come across my desk in which good men and women have been brutalized and abandoned at the hands of the very government which they sought to serve. In a nation that outwardly values equality, liberty, and opportunity, it’s a relief to see our policies finally catching up to our principles.
Keep at it, Joe. There’s more work to be done.
Well said.