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God Bless Those who Protect our Liberty
Past, Present and Future.
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Posted on 10/09/2003 4:12:52 AM PDT by kattracks
(CNSNews.com) - Homosexual activists continue to use this summer's U.S. Supreme Court verdict overturning Texas' homosexual sodomy statute to further their agenda. Their latest target is the U.S. military and its policy banning sodomy among members of the armed forces.
The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) took its argument before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Services Tuesday, equipped with a friend of the court legal brief authored by attorneys for The American Civil Liberties Union and the Lambda Legal Defense & Education Fund. The case, U.S. v. Marcum , involves Air Force Technical Sergeant Eric Marcum, who was convicted of performing consensual sodomy with a male airman in his home.
Steve Ralls, SLDN spokesman, said the case could be the one that ultimately decides the fate of the military sodomy statute -- Article 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). Ralls said the SLDN argument asserted that the Lawrence v. Texas decision by the Supreme Court this summer, overturning the state law forbidding homosexual sodomy, should also nullify Article 125.
"If the court elects to follow the Supreme Court's Lawrence decision and strike down Article 125, that would have a far-reaching effect within the military not only for lesbian and gay service members, but for heterosexual service members as well," Ralls told CNSNews.com .
Ralls cited a Rand Institute study suggesting that as many as 80 percent of heterosexual service members engage in private consensual sodomy.
"So it's not limited to just gay and lesbian service members but a very sizable portion of the military population," Ralls said.
But attorney Rick Erickson, a major in the Marine Corps Reserve, said the Lawrence v. Texas and U.S. v. Marcum cases are like apples and oranges. He said homosexual activists were just using this case to further their own agenda.
"Whenever they see someone in the news or someone that they know of who is going to be prosecuted under Article 125 of the UCMJ, then they'll kind of latch on to that and use that to promote their agenda in other ways," said Erickson, who serves with the Phoenix, Ariz., firm of Fennemore, Craig and is director of the Washington, D.C, based non-profit group, Americans for Military Readiness.
"They'll get all the lawyers they need, all the representation to try and piggyback on anything they can, so I think this was coming," Erickson said. "They even threatened publicly that Lawrence would be the way to overturn the UCMJ, but it's two entirely different things altogether."
Ralls conceded that the same military court of appeals hearing the Marcum case has upheld the armed forces' sodomy ban in the past by relying on the Supreme Court's Bowers v. Hardwick decision of 1986, a 5-4 ruling in which the justices found nothing in the Constitution that "would extend a fundamental right to homosexuals to engage in acts of consensual sodomy." However, Ralls said, \ldblquote Lawrence specifically invalidated the Bowers ruling ... so the past foundations for upholding the statute no longer exist within this court."
So, civilian and military versions of justice could eventually collide, especially if the Marcum case ends up being appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. But for now, SLDN's case faces unique obstacles, according to Erickson.
"The court isn't going to do the same kind of analysis that was done in Lawrence as it does under the application of the UCMJ and they (the homosexual activists) know that and everybody else knows that," Erickson said.
Erickson cited Able v. United States , a 1998 case decided in the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals involving a group of homosexuals in the military who had publicly challenged the Clinton administration's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy.
In ruling against the homosexuals, the circuit court cited past rulings by the nation's highest court.
"The Supreme Court has recognized that 'the military is, by necessity, a specialized society separate from civilian society,'" the Second Circuit Court of Appeals stated. "The military's overriding duty is to prepare for and to fight our nation's battles...a mission that requires that each individual subordinate personal desires and interests to the common goal.
"In the context of this requirement of individual self-sacrifice to collective needs, the military 'must foster instinctive obedience, unity, commitment, and esprit de corps,'" the circuit court stated, borrowing language from a Supreme Court precedent.
In the Marcum case, Erickson said, the homosexual group would have to persuade the court that the sodomy ban could be overturned without compromising order and discipline.
"It has never been interpreted that (homosexual sodomy) is acceptable, that it would not jeopardize good order and discipline, because it's obviously an agenda that they are pushing that would cause a lot of uproar," Erickson said.
Erickson also emphasized another distinction he said was often overlooked in the civilian world and the mainstream media.
"There is no right to serve in the military. Serving in the military is a privilege, not a right," Erickson said. "When you take the oath to serve and defend the Constitution, the rules are the UCMJ. To propose that there should be this faction, this separate class of service people who get to break the rules, then you're violating the UCMJ and you will be discharged."
A decision in the Marcum case is expected by the end of the year.
Listen to audio for this story. E-mail a news tip to Steve Brown.
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God Bless Those who Protect our Liberty
Past, Present and Future.
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Why would that be? I can't see any basis for that conjecture.
Britain has allowed openly gay servicemen for years and has had few problems because of it.
Like most political issues, the predicted ramifications of allowing gays in the military is, in my opinion, very exaggerated.
The poster was referring to homosexuals not happy, merry, exuberant servicemen in Britain.
Can we assume British servicewomen are allowed to express happiness too?
There's a vast difference between the skin color you're born with and where you choose to put your penis.
BTW, the UCMJ doesn't define acts that constitute sodomy in the body of Article 125, but case law shows it to be almost anything other than him on top, her on the bottom in the good ol' missionary position. Oh-oh!
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