{"id":37866,"date":"2013-10-07T11:41:32","date_gmt":"2013-10-07T15:41:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=37866"},"modified":"2013-10-07T11:41:32","modified_gmt":"2013-10-07T15:41:32","slug":"gays-having-trouble-getting-their-special-leave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=37866","title":{"rendered":"Gays having trouble getting their special leave"},"content":{"rendered":"

I didn’t bother mentioning that gay members of the military were getting their own special leave to get married, mostly because all I could say about it was “I told you so” when the gays started getting special privileges – because they said overturning the don’t ask, don’t tell policy was about serving, but it was actually more about getting benefits and general acceptance of the lifestyle. So now, I’m mentioning it because they’re whining that they’re having a hard time getting their special privileges to the LA Times<\/a>;<\/p>\n

The frustrations are palpable for soldiers such as Spc. Jodie Harper, an Ohio National Guard member and Army supply clerk stationed in Kuwait. When he heard about the new policy, he immediately applied for 10 days of leave to wed his longtime companion, Craig Roberts, in Washington, D.C., where gay marriage is legal.<\/p>\n

With Harper on a nine-month deployment and Roberts in school and working two jobs, the couple is struggling to make ends meet. Once married, Roberts could register for federal benefits available to spouses of other National Guard troops, including military health care, tuition assistance and payments to help defray housing expenses.<\/p>\n

But Harper\u2019s battalion commander, Lt. Col. Mark Raaker, refused, saying only emergency leave was being granted. \u201cHe said if leave is granted for me to be married then it\u2019s not fair to heterosexuals,\u201d Harper said.<\/p>\n

Raaker did not respond to a request for an interview. Col. Bryan Hilferty, a spokesman for the Army in Kuwait, said: \u201cDeployed soldiers, because they are in support of the war effort, are only authorized leave in emergencies such as the death or serious illness of an immediate family member.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yeah, who knew that the poor special gays wouldn’t be allowed to return from their deployment to use their special gay leave? I’m sure that’s not what the Obama Administration had in mind.<\/p>\n

In interviews, half a dozen military members also said their applications had been rejected, and for widely varying reasons. In some cases, commanders said they could not be spared time off. In others, officers were unaware of the new policy or said the procedures had not been finalized.<\/p>\n

In still other cases, gay and lesbian soldiers have been approved for leave to get married \u2014 while other soldiers in similar circumstances have seen their applications denied.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So I guess the special gay leave should just be granted regardless of the current military operations in which they’re supposed to be engaged. Enough will never be enough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I didn’t bother mentioning that gay members of the military were getting their own special leave … Gays having trouble getting their special leave<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[170],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-who-knows"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37866\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}