Bryan Fischer
"Don't ask, don't tell" - - well, she told
By Bryan Fischer
If you're a lesbian and you don't want to get discharged from the military, you might want to be smarter than Jene Newsome. Despite claiming that she had played by the "Don't ask, don't tell" rules, she got married to her lesbian lover in Iowa after an activist state supreme court said she could.
Well, that was tell number one. A marriage license, Ms. Newsome, is a public record. If you want to keep your sexual preference hidden from your superiors, it's best not to advertise it to the whole world.
Second, when the police came to her home seeking to execute an arrest warrant on her lesbian "wife" ("husband?" — it's hard to know these days), they found the wedding license lying right in the middle of the dining room table. If you want to keep your sexual preference a secret, there are better ways.
Rapid City, S.D. law enforcement officials saw the wedding license and did their legal duty by reporting what they had found to the military. Ms. Newsome received an "honorable discharge" in January. (This is not your father's military: she committed what is a crime under the UCMJ, and has the word "honorable" on her discharge papers. Go figure.)
Naturally, the ACLU has leapt into the fray, and hopes to punish everybody in sight for upholding the law.
Newsome's partner in sexual deviancy is apparently not a model citizen, currently being under indictment for one felony and three misdemeanor counts of theft. That's another tip for Ms. Newsome — if you don't want get outed, it might be best not to "marry" somebody who robs people.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has been suggesting that the military might not expel a service member whose sexual preference is revealed by a third party. That's utterly irrelevant. The law — and Gates knows this — simply says that homosexuality is incompatible with military service. You don't get a pass on the law just because your crime comes to the attention of somebody besides yourself.
Gates' theory — you get to break the law as long as you don't rat yourself out — is absurd. Imagine if we applied that to any other realm of law enforcement. You, sir, get to go right on holding up banks because all we have to go on is ironclad eyewitness testimony from tellers, managers and other bank patrons. Please, please, pretty please admit you did it so we can lock you up. Otherwise, we will be forced to let you go so you can rob and pillage some more.
That, of course, makes no sense in the real world. And it doesn't in the military either.
© Bryan Fischer
March 14, 2010
If you're a lesbian and you don't want to get discharged from the military, you might want to be smarter than Jene Newsome. Despite claiming that she had played by the "Don't ask, don't tell" rules, she got married to her lesbian lover in Iowa after an activist state supreme court said she could.
Well, that was tell number one. A marriage license, Ms. Newsome, is a public record. If you want to keep your sexual preference hidden from your superiors, it's best not to advertise it to the whole world.
Second, when the police came to her home seeking to execute an arrest warrant on her lesbian "wife" ("husband?" — it's hard to know these days), they found the wedding license lying right in the middle of the dining room table. If you want to keep your sexual preference a secret, there are better ways.
Rapid City, S.D. law enforcement officials saw the wedding license and did their legal duty by reporting what they had found to the military. Ms. Newsome received an "honorable discharge" in January. (This is not your father's military: she committed what is a crime under the UCMJ, and has the word "honorable" on her discharge papers. Go figure.)
Naturally, the ACLU has leapt into the fray, and hopes to punish everybody in sight for upholding the law.
Newsome's partner in sexual deviancy is apparently not a model citizen, currently being under indictment for one felony and three misdemeanor counts of theft. That's another tip for Ms. Newsome — if you don't want get outed, it might be best not to "marry" somebody who robs people.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has been suggesting that the military might not expel a service member whose sexual preference is revealed by a third party. That's utterly irrelevant. The law — and Gates knows this — simply says that homosexuality is incompatible with military service. You don't get a pass on the law just because your crime comes to the attention of somebody besides yourself.
Gates' theory — you get to break the law as long as you don't rat yourself out — is absurd. Imagine if we applied that to any other realm of law enforcement. You, sir, get to go right on holding up banks because all we have to go on is ironclad eyewitness testimony from tellers, managers and other bank patrons. Please, please, pretty please admit you did it so we can lock you up. Otherwise, we will be forced to let you go so you can rob and pillage some more.
That, of course, makes no sense in the real world. And it doesn't in the military either.
© Bryan Fischer
The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)