The amount was half of what Lance Bombardier Kerry Fletcher, 32, had sought, but is still one of the biggest payouts imposed by a workers’ rights board.

Fletcher testified that after the military did nothing to stop the harassment when the man and his army friends attempted to destroy her career and health.

Her car was vandalized, she was belittled at work and she received threatening phone calls.

Text messages from the sergeant to the woman were entered into evidence.  In one he told her: “Look I might be able to convert you. You don’t know what you are missing.”

Her tormentor denied he had discriminated against her, claiming he was only legitimately enforcing discipline. The Ministry of Defense denied it had swept Fletcher’s complaints under the carpet.

Nevertheless, the tribunal ruled in January that Fletcher had been the victim of “direct sex discrimination and harassment,” allowing her claim for monetary damages to move forward.

Fletcher, an accomplished horsewoman and 10-year career soldier, took part in the Trooping the Color ceremony and served with distinction in Bosnia.

“She is a completely innocent person whose life has been destroyed by the Army because she was rash enough to stand up for herself,” her attorney John Mackenzie said.

After the tribunal made its initial finding, Fletcher quit the military. Mackenzie told the remedy hearing that his client’s position within the Royal Artillery became “untenable” after she won her case against the Ministry of Defense.

Even though the MoD has apologized to Fletcher, “The claimant felt unable to continue to serve within the Royal Artillery because she felt she would continue to be victimized and discriminated against,” Mackenzie told the tribunal.

“The immediate consequence of the act of discrimination is that the claimant’s career in the Royal Artillery has collapsed and it’s the respondent’s conduct that has caused this collapse.”

The British military ended its ban on gays and lesbians serving in the armed forces in 2000.

The move by the military veterans confronts the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama with a thorny political and cultural issue that dogged former President Bill Clinton early in his administration.

“As is the case with Great Britain, Israel, and other nations that allow gays and lesbians to serve openly, our service members are professionals who are able to work together effectively despite differences in race, gender, religion, and sexuality,” the officers wrote.

While Obama has expressed support for repeal, he said during the presidential campaign that he would not do so on his own – an indication that he would tread carefully to prevent the issue from becoming a drag on his agenda. Obama said he would instead work with military leaders to build consensus on removing the ban on openly gay service members.

“Although I have consistently said I would repeal ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ I believe that the way to do it is make sure that we are working through a process, getting the Joint Chiefs of Staff clear in terms of what our priorities are going to be,” Obama said in a September interview with the Philadelphia Gay News.

Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for Obama’s transition team, declined comment.

The issue of gays in the military became a flash point early in the Clinton administration as Clinton tried to fulfill a campaign promise to end the military’s ban on gays. His efforts created the current compromise policy – ending the ban but prohibiting active-duty service members from openly acknowledging they are gay.

But it came at a political cost. The resulting debate divided service members and veterans, put Democrats on the defensive and provided cannon fodder for social conservatives and Republican critics who questioned Clinton’s patriotism and standing with the military.

Retired Adm. Charles Larson, a four-star admiral and two-time superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy who signed the statement with 104 other retired admirals and generals, said in an interview that he believed Clinton’s approach was flawed because he rushed to change military culture.

Larson said he hoped Obama would take more time to work with the Pentagon. Joining Larson among the signatories was Clifford Alexander, Army secretary under former President Jimmy Carter.

“There are a lot of issues they’ll have to work out, and I think they’ll have to prioritize,” Larson said, noting that the new administration will immediately face combat-readiness issues and budget concerns. “But I hope this would be one of the priority issues in the personnel area.”

The list of 104 former officers who signed the statement appears to signal growing support for resolving the status of gays in the military. Last year, 28 former generals and admirals signed a similar statement.

Larson, who has a gay daughter he says has broadened his thinking on the subject, believes a generational shift in attitudes toward homosexuality has created a climate where a repeal is not only workable, but also an important step for keeping talented personnel in the military.

“I know a lot of young people now – even people in the area of having commands of ships and squadrons – and they are much more tolerant, and they believe, as I do, that we have enough regulations on the books to enforce proper standards of human behavior,” Larson said.

The officers’ statement points to data showing there are about 1 million gay and lesbian veterans in the United States, and about 65,000 gays and lesbians currently serving in the military.

The military discharged about 12,340 people between 1994 and 2007 for violating the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, according to the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a military watchdog group. The number peaked in 2001 at 1,273, but began dropping off sharply after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Last year, 627 military personnel were discharged under the policy.

Political observers say that even though the issue may not be as controversial as it was when Clinton addressed it, it’s impossible to forget what happened then.

Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia, said Obama is unlikely to tackle the issue early on. Sabato said he expects Obama to focus on economic recovery and avoid risking the spark of a distracting “brush fire” controversy at the outset.

“I can’t imagine that he will do this right in the beginning, given the Clinton precedent,” Sabato said.

Aaron Belkin, who has studied the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy as director of the Palm Center at the University of California at Santa Barbara and organized the officers’ statement, said how Obama addresses the issue will be the first test for the new president on gay rights.

“Everyone is going to be interested to see how he responds,” Belkin said.

The Convention, which represents about 200 Southern Baptist churches in West Virginia, has unanimously passed a resolution calling on the legislature to take up a proposed amendment.

The resolution also calls on other denominations in the state to join it in its call to action.

Last month, the Family Policy Council of West Virginia demanded Gov. Joe Manchin convene a special legislative session to put the amendment on the ballot.

Manchin ignored the pressure, saying the state already has a law limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples.

The Council continues to insist the issue to be taken up by the legislature, and points to a poll it took showing 73 percent of registered voters support amending the constitution. Amending the West Virginia constitution requires approval of the legislature and a vote by the electorate.

The Council says it wants a proposed amendment put to voters next year.

West Virginia’s so-called Defense of Marriage act was passed in 2000. It not only limits marriage to opposite-sex couples, but also bars the state from recognizing gay marriages performed out-of-state.

In addition, 13 retired judges, including three who had served on the state Supreme Court, said Monday that they were opposed to the ban.

“I’m not backing away from the ultimate test, which is still what’s in the best interest of the child,” Beebe told The Associated Press. “Now the question then becomes: Is the best interest of the child in foster care best handled by a blanket policy prohibiting it or by a case-by-case situation? Particularly in the light of the fact that we’ve got a problem with the number of foster families.”

A socially conservative group collected enough signatures to have place a referendum before voters in November that would force lawmakers to enact a ban on all unmarried couples from fostering children.

The legislature drew the wrath of the Arkansas Family Council for dead-ending similar legislation in the past. The Family Council is the same group that spearheaded Arkansas’ constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.

The fostering legislation failed after Beebe suggested that there were constitutional problems with the bill, although he would not say if he intended to veto it if it were passed.

Although the ballot measure includes all unmarried couples, it is seen as an attempt to specifically ban gays from fostering.

Arkansas’s Child Welfare Agency Review Board had established a policy in 1999 that banned gay people from serving as foster parents, and the Arkansas Supreme Court struck it down after a seven-year legal battle between the state and the ACLU. 

Several state and national child welfare groups filed friend-of-the-court briefs urging the court to strike down the exclusion, because it worked against the best interests of foster children.

In its unanimous ruling, the court said testimony in the state’s appeal demonstrated that “the driving force behind adoption of the regulations was not to promote the health, safety and welfare of foster children but rather based upon the board’s views of morality and its bias against homosexuals.”

Last week, officials with the Department of Human Services heard testimony from advocates urging the state to drop its policy.

Arkansas Families First, the group fighting the measure, said Arkansas is unnecessarily limiting the number of good foster homes by prohibiting unmarried couples living together from taking in children.

In saying he is revisiting his support for the ban, Bebee carefully avoided the issue of gays fostering, instead focusing on what he called the “broad” implications of the measure and the high number of children in state care.

But the 13 former judges who oppose the ban noted in their statement Monday that the ban was aimed at banning gay and lesbian couples from becoming adoptive or foster parents.

In a joint statement, the judges said the proposal would limit their ability to choose the best home environment for children and said that child placement should be decided on a case-by-case basis.

In July, President George W. Bush signed legislation repealing a rule that prevented HIV-infected immigrants, students and tourists from receiving U.S. visas without special waivers. The ban also held up U.S. adoptions of children with HIV.

Since then, the administration has been accused of dragging its feet in implementing the change.

The ban was originally enacted in 1987, and explicitly restated in 1993, despite efforts in the public health community to remove the ban when Congress reformed U.S. immigration law in the early 1990s.  

Under the new regulations announced by DHS, Department of State consular officers overseas will now have the authority to grant temporary, non-immigrant visas to otherwise eligible applicants who are HIV-positive and meet certain requirements the agency said.

“This regulation significantly improves the opportunities for individuals seeking to visit the U.S. who were previously inadmissible because of an HIV infection,” said Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. 

“Perhaps most important to the applicants, we’re also accelerating the process by providing an additional avenue for temporary admission, while maintaining a high level of security at our borders.”

The HIV Waiver Final Rule will apply to foreigners who are HIV-positive and seek to enter the United States as visitors for up to 30 days; these individuals still must meet all of the other normal criteria for the granting of a U.S. visa.  

The issuance of visas under the rule will also be subject to certain criteria designed to ensure an HIV-positive person’s activities while in the United States do not present a risk to the public health.  

Travelers who do not meet the specific requirements of the rule, or who wish to follow the pre-existing process, may elect to follow the existing procedure for a case-by-case determination of their eligibility for a visa and admission authorization.

Visas issued under this final rule will not publicly identify any traveler as HIV-positive, DHS said.

But the agency noted that the changes do not automatically amend existing regulations, administered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that continue to list HIV as a “communicable disease of public-health significance.”  HHS is currently beginning the rulemaking process to remove HIV from this list.

Mass Resistance filed paperwork this week with the Massachusetts Secretary of State’s office that would allow it to begin collecting signatures on a petition to force a vote on the issue.

If it were successful in getting the measure on the ballot, it would not be before 2010.

Same-sex couples have been free to marry in Massachusetts since 2004, but only if they were residents of the state.

Then-Gov. Mitt Romney (R) dusted off a 1913 law that said marriage licenses could not be issued to couples whose weddings would not be recognized in their home states, and threatened to charge local clerks if they issued marriage licenses to out-of-state, same-sex couples.

The old law was originally passed when interracial marriage was legal in Massachusetts but not in most other parts of the country.

When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned state bans on interracial marriage, the Massachusetts law fell into disuse.

Last month, current Gov. Deval Patrick (D) signed legislation repealing the law.

Mass Resistance spokesperson Brian Camenker told the Assopicated Press on Friday that lawmakers and Patrick bowed to the will of the “gay lobby” by approving the repeal of the 1913 law.

The repeal effort is considered unlikely to succeed. Patrick has a high approval rating and polls indicated most Massachusetts voters are comfortable with same-sex marriage.

An attempt to put a measure on the ballot to ban same-sex marriage altogether in the state failed to win support in the legislature last year.

The committee voted 3-2 to hold hearings on whether Sen. Jack Harper (R) intentionally broke the Legislature’s rules by cutting off a Democratic filibuster and forcing a vote.

One of two openly gay senators in the legislature called for the ethics investigation, saying Harper and other GOP leaders engaged in dirty tricks.

Sen. Ken Cheuvront (D) asked the committee to issue a formal reprimand against Harper. The complaint accuses Harper of “conspiring” with other Republican leaders to cut off microphones last month during the Democratic filibuster aimed at killing the anti-gay measure.

Republicans accuse Cheuvront of political posturing.

After the microphones were cut, Republicans forced an immediate vote on the proposed amendment. It passed on a 16-4 vote. It had previously been approved by the House.

The issue now goes to voters in November.

In 2006, a similar amendment to ban same-sex marriage and civil unions failed when put to voters.

Public opinion polls have showed that while most people in the state oppose same-sex marriage, they do not want to enshrine that in the constitution.

The current amendment proposal does not mention civil unions.

Arizona already has a Defense of Marriage Act that limits marriage to opposite-sex couples.  Supporters of the constitutional amendment say they fear the law could be overturned by the courts. Amending the state constitution would tie the hands of the judiciary.

A hearing on the ethics complaint must be held within five to 20 days.

No matter what the committee decides, it will not affect the ballot measure from going to voters.

The measure was included in legislation reauthorizing PEPFAR, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.

The ban repeal measure was tacked onto the bill by Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Gordon Smith (R-OR) and passed the Senate last week.

“Congressional backing for the repeal of this unjust and sweeping policy that deems HIV-positive individuals inadmissible to the United States is a huge step forward for equality,” said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese.

“The HIV travel and immigration ban performs no public health service, is unnecessary and ineffective. We thank our allies on the Hill who fought to end this injustice and now call on President George W. Bush to sign the PEPFAR bill into law and ask Secretary of Health and Human Services Leavitt to remove the remaining regulatory barriers to HIV-positive visitors and immigrants,” he said.
The travel and immigration ban prohibits HIV-positive foreign nationals from entering the U.S. unless they obtain a special waiver, which only allows for short-term travel.  Current policy also prevents the vast majority of foreign nationals with HIV from obtaining legal permanent residency in the United States.

The ban originated in 1987 and was explicitly codified by Congress in 1993, despite efforts in the public health community to remove the ban when Congress reformed U.S. immigration law in the early 1990s.

While immigration law currently excludes foreigners with any “communicable disease of public health significance” from entering the U.S., only HIV is explicitly named in the statute.  For all other illnesses, the Secretary of Health and Human Services retains the ability, with the medical expertise of his department, to determine which illnesses truly pose a risk to public health.
Gay and HIV/AIDS rights advocates have been fighting for repeal of the ban for more than a decade.

It was only years after he nearly died in battle, receiving a Purple Heart for courage, that he realized he needed to speak out against Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the ban on gays serving openly in the military.

“Three hours into the invasion, we had stopped to wait for orders. I went back to the Humvee to retrieve something – to this day I can’t remember what – and, as I crossed that dusty patch of desert for the third time that day, I triggered a landmine,” former Marine Staff Sgt. Eric F. Alva told the Military Personnel Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee.

“I was thrown through the air, landing 10 or 15 feet away,” said Alva, who served in he Marine Corps for 13 years. ”The pain was unimaginable. My fellow marines were rushing to my aid, cutting away my uniform to assess the damage and treat my wounds. I remember wondering why they weren’t removing my right boot – it wasn’t until later that I realized it was because that leg was already gone.”

Alva said that he received the Purple Heart, along with visits from the President and First Lady. “I was told I was a hero,” he recalled.

“That landmine may have put an end to my military career that day, but it didn’t put an end to my secret. That would come years later, when I realized that I had fought and nearly died to secure rights for others that I myself was not free to enjoy. I had proudly served a country that was not proud of me. More importantly, my experience disproved all the arguments against open service by gays and lesbians – I knew I had to share my story,” Alva said.

The committee also heard from U.S. Army Major General Vance Coleman (Ret.) and U.S. Navy Captain Joan E. Darrah (Ret.) who also called for an end to the ban.

But Elaine Donnelly, president of the conservative Center for Military Readiness, expressed her concern over gay men sharing a “cramped submarine” with other officers.

The remark drew laughter from some in the packed committee room.

“Equal opportunity is important, but the needs of our military must come first,” Donnelly said.

The congressional hearing was the first on the impact of DADT since it was enacted 15 years ago.

Susan Davis (D), chair of the subcommittee, has introduced legislation to repeal the ban, but it is unlikely it will come to a vote before the session ends.

Last month, former U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn (R), one of the principle lawmakers responsible for the passage in 1993 of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, said it is now time for Congress to revisit the law.

A study published by a University of California think tank earlier this month found that “allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly is unlikely to pose any significant risk to morale, good order, discipline or cohesion.”

Americans seem to agree. An ABC News/Washington Post poll released on the weekend shows that 75 percent of Americans believe LGBT people should be allowed to serve.

A similar poll taken shortly after President Bill Clinton signed the law in 1993 found that only 44 percent of Americans supported the idea of letting gays serve openly.

Under DADT two people every day are dropped from the military for being gay.

In the 15 years that DADT has been in force, more than 10,000 personnel have been discharged as a result of the policy, including 800 with skills deemed “‘mission critical,” such as pilots, combat engineers and linguists.

The number of gay men and lesbians turned away by military recruiters is unknown.

A study conducted last year for the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network concluded that the U.S. military could attract as many as 41,000 new recruits if gays and lesbians in the military were able to be open about their sexual orientation.