The Army is trying to figure out how to deal with this, and I'm sure the Air Force and Marines are as well, though since the Marines are part of the Navy that's really a combined thing. The issue of on base housing is going to come up as well. Since my husband and I are reserve officers it doesn't affect us, but we think that once homosexual couples are ecognized as being married, on base married housing will have to accomodate them. A lot of married service members didn't get married and often don't want to be married religiously anyway, so this is a non issue for them.
I am sure the founding fathers would and are rolling in their graves, seeing how the church (religious wing nuts, or Christian taliban) is trying to turn this United States into a theocracy
They would. Especially at how they are perceived as the same type of religious nut.
The dwarves of yore made mighty spells, While hammers fell like ringing bells In places deep, where dark things sleep, In hollow halls beneath the fells.
For ancient king and elvish lord There many a gloaming golden hoard They shaped and wrought, and light they caught To hide in gems on hilt of sword. - J.R.R. Tolkien
I am sure the founding fathers would and are rolling in their graves, seeing how the church (religious wing nuts, or Christian taliban) is trying to turn this United States into a theocracy
A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side. Aristotle Never discourage anyone...who continually makes progress, no matter how slow. Plato.. "A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives" Jackie Robinson
I'm a Marriage Commissioner in my Canadian province and when the Marriage Act was amended in this province in 2004 (before the federal government made s/sm legal across the country, six of the ten provinces had already amended their Marriage Acts), every Marriage Commissioner received a letter from the Department of Vital Statistics: Marriage Division, which administers the Marriage Act, telling us that under the law, we were obliged to marry same sex couples if asked to do so because we are, in effect, agents of the state. Those who felt that they could not comply with the law on religious grounds were asked to turn in their licenses. Of the seventy-five or so provincial Marriage Commissioners, only two turned in their licenses. The first gay couple I married came all the way from Lawrence, Kansas, and I married them on December 27, 2005. I have since married two more same-sex couples. (The couple from Lawrence, by the way, knew that their marriage would not be valid in their home state - and won't be until hell freezes over, according to what I've heard about Kansas - but they wanted to have their love for one another recognized.) I keep in touch, they are still together and very happy.
Couldn't the U.S. Navy circumvent that religious chaplaincy stricture by hiring a few lay chaplains licensed to marry in the states that allow s/s couples the same rights as all other citizens? That would be one way of telling the homophobic Christian groups that they aren't calling the shots.
That quote from the Chalcedon Foundation could well have been written in 1620! I'm a Christian - of the Anglican persuasion (that's Episcopalian to Americans) and I place Christ's "Love one another as I have loved you" well above the 613 Levitical commandments. Furthermore, I doubt if the Founding Fathers were as narrow-minded as these right-wing Christian groups make them out to be. After all, the FF clearly intended the state to trump the church in matters of law!
"God is no captious sophister, eager to trip us up whenever we say amiss, but a courteous tutor, ready to amend what, in our weakness or our ignorance, we say ill, and to make the most of what we say aright." from 'A Learned Discourse on Justification', a sermon by Richard Hooker (1554-1600).
Though most major religions ultimately don't approve of homosexuality, I know of no religious law that makes it okay to force others by secular law to be told who they can or cannot be married to.
In particular, Jesus said nothing about changing or forcing secular law.
Mouse, the Christian Taliban (like the Muslim Taliban) interprets the Bible differently than the majority of Christians who are rational people. They believe that the 613 mitzvot that are found in the Torah should be the law of the land instead of the Constitution. As the founder of the Chalcedon Foundation wrote:
"Unless the state is under the triune God, there is no hope for freedom for either the church or men. If the state is its own god and its own source of morality, then the state can do no wrong, and no man has then the right or freedom to differ from or to challenge the state.
Again, if the state is equated with government, there is then no freedom for man, because freedom is inseparable from self-government under God. Thus, the Christian community must assert the priority of God’s law-word as binding on all of life, including church, state, and school. Christians must once again take over government in education, welfare, health, and other spheres. Basic to this take-over is tithing." -- R J Rushdoonny: Christianity and the StateLink 1
"The genius of the Constitution rests not in any static meaning it might have had in a world that is dead and gone, but in the adaptability of its great principles to cope with current problems and current needs." -- Justice William Brennan: Speech to the Text and Teaching Symposium at Georgetown University,(October 12, 1985)
Though most major religions ultimately don't approve of homosexuality, I know of no religious law that makes it okay to force others by secular law to be told who they can or cannot be married to.
In particular, Jesus said nothing about changing or forcing secular law.
IMO, the Christian Taliban (an extreme fringe of the Religious Right, not all Christians) don't care about the Constitution. In fact they seem to find it something that gets in the way of their goal which seems to be imposing their "Christian" version of Sharia Law on the United States. Groups like the Chalcedon Foundation, the Dominion Educational Ministries, Inc., the Coalition on Revival, American Vision, and (to a lesser extent) Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council, the American Family Association, and the Christian Coalition believe that their interpretation of biblical law should be the law of the land much as it was in Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony. They seem to be able to get the members of Congress who depend on the Religious Right vote to get elected to pass legislation they demand.
"The genius of the Constitution rests not in any static meaning it might have had in a world that is dead and gone, but in the adaptability of its great principles to cope with current problems and current needs." -- Justice William Brennan: Speech to the Text and Teaching Symposium at Georgetown University,(October 12, 1985)
I suspect the original edict was issued by one not authorized to actually do so, and got his/her wrists slapped very publicly for 'jumping the gun' by a superior officer. Just my guess.
I would guess the same thing and I'd hate to be that person.
"No matter how dark the moment, love and hope are always possible." George Chakiris
“For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who don't believe, no proof is possible.” Stuart Chase
I don't understand how such blatantly UN-Constitutional laws like DADT and the DOMA can get passed into law in the first place.
I mean, the DOMA EXEMPTS ITSELF from provisions of the Constitution. How could it NOT be UN-Constitutional.
Sadly, because GC posts fact (i.e. the reality of this situation) I have to concur that the military, being part of the Federal Government, is bound by the DOMA, bad and UN-Constitutional as it is, and that means until either Congress repeals it or the SCOTUS invalidates it, the military is bound by it.
The unfairness, the injustice of it all breaks my heart. I weep for what America has become.
I absolutely agree that it never should have been signed into law in the first place. Unfortunately, because it was, we have to go through the proper legal channels to get rid of it and until that happens, the military's hands are tied.
"No matter how dark the moment, love and hope are always possible." George Chakiris
“For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who don't believe, no proof is possible.” Stuart Chase
