Don't ask, don't tell, don't support

OK: which ones are queer?


So you got a couple of men living together. One's in the military, plays by the rules, nobody's got any idea he's a fag. Just doing his job in a war zone. How's it fair that his significant other is legally nonexistent when it comes to the lavish support the military doles out to families of military personnel:

Barred From Benefits

Military service is a sacrifice for any family. In exchange, service members get a wide array of benefits, from store discounts on military bases to help paying for education. But those perks are for the most part not available to gay or lesbian partners, because only married husbands and wives can get the military ID card needed to access them.

Joyce Raezer, executive director of the National Military Family Association, says that is true even for same-sex couples in states where gay marriage is now legal. She notes that spouses without an ID card are basically "nonentities" in the military's eyes.

"If that service member, for example, is injured or killed, that partner would not be notified about the injury or the death," she said.

That's what happened to Jeff Carnes while he was stationed with the Army in Iraq. His partner at the time was in the Air Force in Afghanistan, where he was injured by shrapnel.

A typical military spouse would be notified of the injury immediately, and the couple would be reunited at a military hospital at the government's expense. However, since this relationship was invisible to the military, Carnes wasn't informed of the injury until weeks later, when his partner told him.

"I, needless to say, had a lot of emotional issues as a result of this," said Carnes. "It was the longest month of my life until I was able to see him again."

Since Carnes and his partner could not acknowledge their relationship, they also could not get the kind of mental health counseling other military spouses are entitled to.

"You really couldn't get therapy," said Carnes. "As a result, we ended our relationship."

According to Pentagon spokeswoman Cynthia Smith, psychologists are not required to report it to the chain of command when a patient admits his or her sexual orientation. But a number of service members dispute that, including Lt. Daniel Choi.

Choi, a West Point graduate and Iraq war veteran, came out publicly to protest Don't Ask, Don't Tell. This week, he was recommended for discharge from the New York National Guard.

Choi said he went to great lengths to stay in the closet, even considering a fake marriage.

"But then I imagined, 'Well, what if I come back in a coffin?'" he said. "And there's a flag-draped coffin, and that flag is folded up and given to my spouse? What if, at that ceremony, it's given to somebody that I don't even love?"

It'd be fun to get this explained to us- like a six year old- by Savonarola, or Anaconda, or Boy Fogle.

The rest of NPR's story is here.