Focus On The Rainbow

Recently Jeff Hawkes of the Intelligencer Journal (see Army Times) wrote about Army National Guard chaplain Aris Fokas, one of the latest victims of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

Surgeons went to work on five Marines mangled by a roadside bomb.

Multiple blasts near Ramadi, west of Baghdad, had torn off the legs of one soldier. Another Marine required amputation of both legs.

Though the time for prayers would come, Army National Guard chaplain Aris Fokas saw the immediate need in the operating room was for an extra set of hands.

He offered his as doctors and nurses labored late into the night in December 2005.

Fokas got busy retrieving medical supplies, hanging intravenous drips and hand pumping blood through a warmer.

When the need for those tasks waned, Fokas slipped back into the role of chaplain. He spoke and prayed with the wounded and with their buddies, who paced and waited for news.

Fokas, a United Church of Christ minister, joined the Pennsylvania Army National Guard in 2003. He was 39 years old and felt called to serve his country by pastoring to soldiers on the front lines.

Fokas warmed to the challenges, and many colleagues came to admire his professionalism and humanity.

But now that he’s home, Fokas, 46, is facing a challenge that threatens his future with the military.

An officer has accused Fokas of telling him he is gay.

Although Fokas denies any such disclosure, a commander at Fort Indiantown Gap has ordered an inquiry.

“It is the policy of the United States Army … that homosexuality is incompatible with military service,” Lt. Col. David W. Wood informed Fokas in a memorandum. “Therefore … an investigation is in process to determine if separation action is warranted.”

Fokas, for now, remains in the Guard, but his chaplain duties are suspended pending the investigation’s findings.

And so here we are yet again seeing another brave and dedicated member of the U.S. military caught up in what is tantamount to the Salem Witch Trials or Joe McCarthy’s paranoia about communists, reds and pinkos.

Men and women alike, from all branches of the U.S. military, have been caught in this tangled web ever since DADT was made policy. Thrown out like this morning’s garbage without even so much as a thank you for their service, often kicked out with no benefits or pay because of dishonorable discharges.

Of course we know how homophobic the military is, or at least seems. But not necessarily among the ranks, but the higher ups who of course are like any good solider only following and enforcing an idiotic and archaic doctrine and policy. It always seems funny to me when these stories appear that the fellow compatriots of the men or women brought down by DADT have no problem with the fact they are gay or lesbian.

No it’s always the ranking officers, duty bound to carry out an unjust policy, making one wonder if they question and have a problem with their own “closeted” identity. After all isn’t the old saying those who protest the most, are ?

So you can help save lives, aid in the fight against terrorism, be the bravest solider on the field of battle or the smartest tech on a sub, but it’s all for naught once you are found to be a faggot. Oh they say homosexual, but faggot is really what this policy and they mean.

We can’t have “them” sharing the same fox hole with another solider or God forbid what would happen if one of “them” was in the shower and someone dropped a bar of soap. We can’t have “them” in the same barracks when the lights go out nor one of “them” being a commander of a same sex unit. No we can’t have this, our military will become the laughing stock of the world if we have “them” in it.

Point is, our military at least as far as DADT policy, is the laughing stock of other countries which don’t bar gays of lesbians from serving.

Oh that’s right, neither does the United States.

You just can’t admit to or be found out that you’re a faggot.

And you thought that was the end of the commentary …….

Jene Newsome played by the rules as an Air Force sergeant: She never told anyone in the military she was a lesbian. The 28-year-old’s honorable discharge under the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy came only after police officers in Rapid City, S.D., saw an Iowa marriage certificate in her home and told the nearby Ellsworth Air Force Base.

Newsome and the American Civil Liberties Union filed a complaint against the western South Dakota police department, claiming the officers violated her privacy when they informed the military about her sexual orientation. The case also highlights concerns over the ability of third parties to “out” service members, especially as the Pentagon has started reviewing the 1993 “don’t ask, don’t tell” law.

“I played by ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’” Newsome told The Associated Press by telephone.

“I just don’t agree with what the Rapid City police department did. … They violated a lot of internal policies on their end, and I feel like my privacy was violated.”

The Rapid City Police Department says Newsome, an aircraft armament system craftsman who spent nine years in the Air Force, was not cooperative when they showed up at her home in November with an arest warrant for her partner, who was wanted on theft charges in Fairbanks, Alaska.

Newsome was at work at the base at the time and refused to immediately come home and assist the officers in finding her partner, whom she married in Iowa — where gay marriage is legal — in October.

Police officers, who said they spotted the marriage license on the kitchen table through a window of Newsome’s home, alerted the base, police Chief Steve Allender said in a statement sent to the AP. The license was relevant to the investigation because it showed both the relationship and residency of the two women, he said.

“It’s an emotional issue and it’s unfortunate that Newsome lost her job, but I disagree with the notion that our department might be expected to ignore the license, or not document the license, or withhold it from the Air Force once we did know about it,” Allender said Saturday. “It was a part of the case, part of the report and the Air Force was privileged to the information.”

He said his department does not seek to expose gay military personnel or investigate the sexuality of Rapid City residents.

Allender said the department was finishing its internal investigation and has determined the officers acted appropriately. They have not been placed on leave during the investigation.

Newsome’s partner is currently out on bail on one felony and three misdemeanor counts of theft stemming from an incident last year, court officials in Fairbanks said. More information was not immediately available, and Newsome said she didn’t know the status of the case and didn’t provide more details about it.

In the complaint filed last month with the department, ACLU South Dakota said police had no legal reason to tell the military Newsome was a lesbian and that officers knew if they did, it would jeopardize her military career.

Newsome, who was discharged in January, said she didn’t know where the marriage license was in her home when police came to her house on Nov. 20 and claims the officers were retaliating because she wouldn’t help with her partner’s arrest.

“This information was intentionally turned over because of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ and to out Jene so that she would lose her military status,” said Robert Doody, executive director of ACLU South Dakota. The ACLU is focusing its complaint on the police department, not the military, and Newsome said she and her attorney have not yet decided on whether to file a lawsuit.

“The ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ piece is important and critical to this, but also it’s a police misconduct case,” Doody said.

A U.S. Air Force spokesman, Senior Airman Adam Grant, said Ellsworth follows all laws set out by Congress and the Defense Department, and he would not comment specifically on Newsome’s discharge, citing privacy policy.

More than 13,500 service members have been discharged under the law since 1994, according to the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, which is lobbying for its repeal. Kevin Nix, communications director of the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, couldn’t speak about Newsome’s case, but said when “someone is outed by a third party, which it sounds like this was, or by a police officer, then, yeah … I’m not surprised the person was discharged.”

Though rare, third-party outing can be especially damaging to service members who wanted to keep their sexual orientation hidden, experts say.

Even though 80 percent of “don’t ask, don’t tell” discharges come from gay and lesbian service members who out themselves, third-party outings are “some of the most heinous instances of ‘don’t, ask, don’t tell,’” said Nathaniel Frank, a research fellow with the Palm Center think tank at the University of California, Santa Barbara and a New York University professor.

Newsome, who is originally from Harrisburg, Pa., is currently on the road, driving to Alaska. She said she’d been looking forward to the time when the military would alter its policies regarding gays and lesbians. But that change didn’t come in time to save her career.

“I felt like it was getting close,” she said. “I was really hopeful.”

Source – AP late afternoon March 13, 2010

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