The Pentagon's policy banning some transgender individuals from joining the military will go into effect on April 12 after appellate judges lifted the final injunction preventing the policy from being implemented, Defense and Justice officials said.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled in favor of the Justice Department, which had filed an emergency motion asking that the transgender policy be allowed to go forward.
After he returned from a tour in Iraq in the fall of 2006, Ramond Curtis wanted to get as far away from the Army as he possibly could. He was mentally checked out far before his contract ran up in 2009, and he sought comfort in various drugs to quell symptoms of what would later be diagnosed as post-traumatic stress disorders.
Lindsay Church comes from a military family, and as a teenager, she planned to join the Navy right after high school. Her plans changed, however, in the face of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell — the Department of Defense policy born on Feb. 28, 1994, that barred gay, lesbian or bisexual servicemembers from serving openly the military.
A highly decorated Kirtland Air Force Base colonel who refused to sign a certificate of appreciation for a retiring master sergeant’s same-sex spouse says he was wrongly disciplined for following his religious beliefs.
I have to preface the following harangue with the fact that I’m a few weeks behind the material I’ll be commenting on. That’s okay, though, considering my subject’s incoherent rant is late by about a decade.
