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WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Pentagon has decided that military chaplains may perform same-sex unions, whether on or off a military installation. The ruling announced Friday by the Pentagon's personnel chief follows the Sept. 20 repeal of a law that had prohibited gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A federal appeals court refused Thursday to decide the constitutionality of the military's now-repealed "don't ask, don't tell" policy banning openly gay troops, saying the issue has been resolved since Americans can enlist and serve in the armed forces without regard to sexual orientation. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco tossed out a lawsuit that had challenged the military policy as a violation of gay service members' civil rights. In doing so, the appeals court also dismissed a Southern California trial judge's year-old ruling that the policy was...

With homosexuals now able to serve openly in the military, the gay rights movement’s next battleground is to persuade the Obama administration to end the armed forces’ ban on “transgenders,” a group that includes transsexuals and cross-dressers. “Our position is that the military should re-examine the policy, the medical regulations, so as to allow open service for transgender people,” said Vincent Paolo Villano, spokesman for the 6,000-member Center for Transgender Equality. The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN), which pushed to end the military’s gay ban, is urging President Obama to sign an executive order prohibiting discrimination based on “gender identity.”...

WOMEN will be able to serve as Australian special forces and infantry soldiers within five years following a greenlight by federal cabinet for the removal of gender-based discrimination in frontline military roles. Defence Minister Stephen Smith today announced a staged-removal of restrictions preventing women from serving in the seven per cent of military roles currently off limits for women. "In the future your role in the defence force will be determined on your ability, not on the basis of your sex," Mr Smith said.

In a press conference with Adm. Mike Mullen Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta joyfully announce September 20, 2011 as a “historic day.” This is the day that the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy was repealed. The repeal is a blatant use of the military to shape public opinion and force the homosexual agenda and gay marriage on the American people a la Saul Alinsky. Shut up! During the press conference Mr. Panetta said “My hope is that the command structure operating with the standard disciplines that are in place will implement those disciplines and will ensure that harassment doesn’t take...

On Sept. 20, 2011, a date that will live in infamy, the U.S. armed forces were deliberately and successfully attacked by advocates of the scourge of homosexuality. The elimination of the last vestige of moral restraint on sexual perversion in the U.S. military, commonly known as the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, ushers in a new Orwellian era in which the military leadership of our nation will proclaim the unnatural as natural, the unhealthy as healthy and the immoral as moral. On Aug. 25, 2010, before the DADT policy was rescinded by Congress and the current president of the United...

SUBJECT: Political Activities by Members of the Armed Forces References: (a) DoD Directive 1344.10, “Political Activities by Members of the Armed Forces on Active Duty,” August 2, 2004 (hereby canceled) (b) Sections 973, 888, 101, and Chapter 47 of title 10, United States Code (c) DoD Instruction 1334.1, “Wearing of the Uniform,” October 26, 2005 (d) Section 441a of title 2, United States Code (e) through (i), see Enclosure 1

A gay soldier's question about the end of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy elicited boos from the audience at Thursday night's Republican candidate debate, and a promise from Rick Santorum to reinstate the policy if elected. In a video submission, Stephen Hill told the Republican presidential candidates that he "had to lie about who he was" when he was deployed to Iraq in 2010 because of his sexual orientation, and his fear that he would "lose my job." "My question is, under one of your presidencies, do you intend to circumvent the progress that's been made for gay...

I was stationed on Guam in the mid-1980s. My squadron flew search and rescue while on the island and made regular deployments to sea. Aside from my duties as a naval aviator, I was also a division officer and had enlisted men and women reporting to me. Guam is only 13 degrees north of the equator—beach weather every day. Most military people used the military beaches; I was one of the folks who liked to travel around the island. That’s how I discovered one of my men was gay. He was on the beach with his boyfriend, and although there...

Take a break from looking for black helicopters, fellow Extremists! It's short story time here at Absolutely Nobama! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Now, when Drill Instructor gives you the command, you will open your footlocker and break out your shower crap and and your shining crap. Port side shower up, starboard side shine 'em up. Ready....Move!" The one thing Senior Drill Instructor Sergeant Brown hated was slow recruits. Slow recruits, if allowed to graduate, became slow Marines. If Sgt. Brown could say anything with 100% certainty after two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, slow Marines were a danger to themselves and...

(CNN) -- In the very early hours of this morning, "don't ask, don't tell" ceased to be U.S. policy. As a result, today is the first day I can write about being the partner of a gay military serviceman without fear that he will lose his job. ... The battle has only been half won. Gay servicemen or servicewomen can no longer be discharged simply for being gay, but they are still treated inequitably. Only by using their newly won free speech can they hope to reap the same benefits as their straight colleagues.

TULSA, Okla. — Master Sgt. Anthony Henry, a top Marine recruiting trainer for the southwestern United States, pulled up to Tulsa’s biggest gay community center on Tuesday morning and left his Chevy where he could make a fast getaway. “I have an exit strategy,” he said. “I know where my choke points are, I’ve strategically parked my car right on the curbside, I have an out.” But as it happened, one of the strangest days in the history of the United States Marine Corps unfolded without the protests and insults that Sergeant Henry had feared. Sergeant Henry, who had been...

Navy Lt. Gary Ross, right, and Dan Swezy celebrate after exchanging wedding vows on Tuesday, Sept. 20, 2011 in Duxbury, Vt. The two men recited their vows at the first possible moment after the formal repeal of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. The partners of 11 years married at the stroke of midnight, just as the ban ended. (CNSNews.com) - Nine months after President Barack Obama signed a bill repealing the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy that said homosexuals could not openly serve in the U.S. military, the “gay ban” ended Tuesday at one minute after midnight. The...

Even as federal officials laud the end of the U.S. military’s ban on openly gay troops, Justice Department lawyers are trying to dissuade a federal appeals court from deciding if the "don’t ask, don’t tell" policy was unconstitutional. They filed a motion Tuesday asking the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to vacate a lower court ruling last September that found the ban violated the civil rights of gay service members. The gay political group Log Cabin Republicans, which brought the case, wants the appeals court to address the ban’s constitutional implications.

President Obama’s re-election campaign on Tuesday touted the end of the military policy “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” as one of the Obama administration’s “signature achievements.” The ban on gays and lesbians serving openly in the military officially ended on Tuesday, following a vote to repeal in December. President Obama, who ran on the pledge to repeal in 2008, called it an “honor” to sign the repeal into law in July, setting into motion a 60-day waiting period. In an email, Obama campaign manager Jim Messina called it both a “policy promise” and a “personal promise” kept by Obama to “the...

In a statement on the day that “don’t ask, don’t tell” ends, President Obama briefly relives the moment in which he signed the bill to reverse the military’s ban on gays, saying he was “proud” to end it. He also adds a sentence for gay service members who were kicked out of the military before the policy ended: “I want those who were discharged under this law to know that your country deeply values your service.” Here’s Obama’s full statement:

"Don't Ask, Don't Tell," the nearly 18-year-old policy that allowed gays to serve in the military as long as they kept their sexual orientation a secret, was officially repealed at 12:01 a.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 20. The following official Defense Department memo acknowledges the historic repeal. "Effective today," it reads, "statements about sexual orientation or lawful acts of homosexual conduct will not be considered as a bar to military service."

<p>When Navy Lt. Gary Ross and his partner were searching for a place to get married, they settled on a site in Vermont, in part because the state is in the Eastern time zone.</p> <p>That way, the two men were able to recite their vows before family and friends at the first possible moment after the formal repeal of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Just after midnight Tuesday, the partners of 11 years were married.</p>

The Navy’s former top civilian has rocked the service in a military journal article by accusing officials of sinking the storied naval air branch into a sea of political correctness. Former Navy Secretary John Lehman, himself a former carrier-based aviator, wrote that the swagger and daring of yesterday’s culture has given way to a focus on integrating women and, this year, gays.

The Navy’s former top civilian has rocked the service in a military journal article by accusing officials of sinking the storied naval air branch into a sea of political correctness. Former Navy Secretary John Lehman, himself an ex-carrier-based aviator, wrote that the swagger and daring of yesterday’s culture has given way to a focus on integrating women and, this year, gays. Pilots constantly worry about anonymous complaints about salty language, while squadron commanders are awash in bureaucratic requirements for reports and statistics, he added. “Those attributes of naval aviators — willingness to take intelligent calculated risk, self-confidence, even a certain...