Freedom to Serve, Freedom to Marry

I want to take a break from my reflections on my personal military spousehood for today and highlight something far more important: those who are denied the right to be full partners to their military spouses due to their gender. From my very limited experience, I've seen what a challenge it is merely to be a male spouse of a female soldier. Anything that doesn't fit the "army wife" mold takes extra work, and when I think of the barriers same-sex partners face to being a welcome, active part of the military community I worry about what "freedom" it is we fight for.

The campaign Freedom to Serve, Freedom to Marry offers this heart-wrenching look at what can STILL happen to same-gendered partners of military members:

I don't know a single military spouse who finds it easy to cope with the challenges of having a partner in the military, and that is from those who do have access to the benefits of being a recognized military family member. Although the Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT) policy that required secrecy of gay service members, the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) still bars same-gendered military families from the sliver of access that make being a spouse workable.

Without health care, the access military IDs bring, support from morale and welfare programs, surviving spouse benefits and other benefits denied by DOMA, these spouses suffer unfairly even after we've taken the huge step forward of removing DADT. Regardless of anyone's personal beliefs around what constitutes marriage, I can't think of a single reason that legally married couples should be able to fight and die for their country but not have the right to be treated as family. For decades the military has created structures to support spouses and children precisely because they know how crucial family input is to whether a soldier, sailor or airman continues their work in the military or moves on. Then why ostracize the partners of good service members due to their gender?

The Servicemember Legal Defense Network has more information here: http://www.sldn.org/ if you'd like to help.

Vocab of the day: 
Military: FSC = Family Support Center