Was he legally able to marry in the state in which he is stationed?
Pentagon: Same-sex spouse benefits begin Sept 3
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Was he legally able to marry in the state in which he is stationed?
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The max time you have for house hunting is 10 days.... not sure exactly why a week and a half is needed. I married in a different state... didn't take me 10 days to do it (didn't have me 5 either).
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It will be interesting to see why 7 and 10 days were chosen. I agree with LITS, 2-3 CONUS and 5-6 OCONUS days of uncharged leave (account for travel time to/from) with the option of additional charged leave seems reasonable.
It's already been said. The reason they're given 10 days is because they have no choice but to leave the state they're currently in (if it is illegal to marry and you're 100+ miles away from a state that legally allows it) to get married, whereas heterosexual couples can legally marry anywhere in the country. It's their choice to get married in the local area or 1,000 miles away. Also something that's been said, the 10 days is to focus more on junior enlisted soldiers. They can't afford as much as officers/senior NCO's.
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It takes me 2 hours to go 100+ miles, not 240 hours... So to save enlisted money you say "go spend money over 10 days instead of 5"..... hmmmmmm
Seeing that the vast majority of Active Duty Soldiers are stationed nowhere near where they are from, it seems to me that every soldier will need to travel quite a distance to get married whether they are Gay or Straight.
My son will be stationed in Hawaii, the distance back home should he decide to marry will be much longer then say a Gay soldier stationed at Ft. Campbell that would need to travel to Iowa to get married. With states that have legalized same sex marriage scattered across the country, most wanting to get married will most likely travel no longer then straight soldiers.
Getting married is and should be a personal choice, I am afraid I am still not convinced that 10 days with no charged leave is appropriate.
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If the reg was changed to where EVERYONE received the 10 days (regardless of sexual orientation) I would support it.
I agree that 10 days is a LONG time. However, the concept of a little extra time makes sense for those stationed far away from a state that allows same-sex marriage. Heterosexuals do not HAVE to travel to get married, they can do it wherever they are stationed. That is not necessarily true for those who want a same-sex marriage.
This is a true story. When I was a PL, one of my soldiers requested some leave to bring his wife where we were. No big deal. While talking to him, he mentioned that he had to enroll her in high school when he brought her to where we are. I think she was 15 or 16. Some states, a spouse can be as young as 14. If the justification is a soldier can't get marry in the current state, so give the soldier 10 day leave so the soldier can get married, there are other situations not just for the same sex marriage. So why is only for same sex marriage DoDis granting up to 10 days of leave?
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For no other reason that it is politically charged, and to question it would have you labeled a bigot. It's so some political appointee can appease an elected official, who can hold it for all of the electorate to see "look how much I care." And of course the gay lobby is far more vocal than the "marrying 15 year olds" lobby...
This is the system we live in, and we're partially (but not totally) to blame.
Some groups are more equal than others . . .
Very true, Mr. Orwell. In this case, heterosexual couples who can marry anywhere in the US are considerably "more equal."
10 days of free leave is a lot, but gay and straight couples are not similarly situated as of yet. I can't get too upset about it.
scoutpilot
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I get upset for the simple reason that almost NO couples get married at their duty station. Weddings are a family thing, and few are stationed near family. Everyone travels to get married.
Plus...you get 30 days of paid leave a year. The gay wedding you've striven for and dreamed of for years isn't important enough to use your generous paid leave for?
I agree that the amount of time seems a bit too generous. I'm certain there will be individual cases of abuse as well. It reminds me of working with Veterans' benefits. The idea is good, but in order for the rules to be simple, they have to be broad in scope (of course, you then get people who take advantage). I'm not saying that simple rules are the best, by any means. It's just that they are easier to come up with and hence more prevelant.
That said, if you just wanted to get a civil license in Texas as a gay couple, you can't, and a heterosexual couple can. I do remember from my time in the Air Force that some couples got married civilly near the duty station so as to receive the benefits, and then they travelled home for the formal to-do some time later.
Maybe 48-72 hours or something would be better. Maybe there should be no hard and fast rule, and the commanders should simply be authorized to grant an amount of time dependent on the circumstances. At any rate, after the relatively short amount of time it would take to get the civil license, if you want a big, multi-day and fabulous gay wedding with honeymoon (as I'm sure it would be), take leave like everyone else.
Still, while the 7 to 10 days are a lot and probably not ideal, given that these folks would have been separated from the service not too long ago, it doesn't bug me that much.
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So, because something could have happened, that never did, it shouldn't bug us? It should probably bug us more.
Where is 7-10 days coming from? It's 10 DAYS!
Scout's right, people don't get married where they're stationed. My brother-in-law was married in Rhode Island, and stationed in Alabama. Where were his 10 free days of not working (beyond the 30 days he has a year)?
I got married in Rhode Island too, and I lived in Virginia at the time.
And that's to go where the families are. What about all the straight couples who have destination weddings?
But no, no. Because 3% (or whatever the quoted percentage is) is gay, and couldn't serve not too long ago, they should not have this free pass, as to not overwhelm my straight-guy guilt for not being subjected to Don't Ask, Don't Tell. And the response is "good on DOD" for this.
And what about the people who don't want to marry.... that's 10 less days for them.
I just finished a book called "Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists" by two economists from the University of Chicago. They're free market economists. They're argument (in the market place, but I'll transpose to this) is that a subsidy for home ownership is in effect, a tax on renters (as one benefits, and industry adapts, the other is put as a disadvantage).
Is this any different? One group has 10 days if they are from a state, and another group doesn't. Yes, this is advantageous to one group, but what does it mean for the other. And finally, marriage isn't something forced on service members (like a change of station), so why should the federal government be paying for this anyway? Use your leave.... that's what it's there for.
My fault, 10 days. I thought I read something about 7 days.
I never said it shouldn't bug you, I said it doesn't bug me.
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That's true.
This isn't directly on point to my previous posts, I know, but I don't agree with this, and I wanted to respond. "Something" did happen for those servicemembers currently on active duty who were around during DADT.
Indeed, those individuals were forced to hide their true identities in order to preserve their careers. That's "something." It's "something" that a heterosexual never had to do.
However, the reasons for the free leave appear to center around the practicalities of obtaining a civil marriage license as opposed to correcting for past discrimination. If you read the whole of my previous posts, you'll see that I tend to agree about 10 days perhaps being too generous.
The reason I don't care, though, and I speak for myself only, is that 10 days of free leave seems a small price to pay for the previous discrimination. As I said, correcting past discrimination does not appear to be the official reason for the policy, but for me personally, it's why the free leave doesn't bug me. If you don't agree with me, that's fine, and I honestly don't want to argue it too much. Even taking into consideration the lack of availablity for a civil marriage license in all states, I'll concede that with the high amount of days, there is some degree of inequity in the policy. I just don't care.
Disparity exists throughout the military in various forms, and it usually is to take into account for differing circumstances of people. Pilots and parachutists risk more than others, so they get additional money per month. People of higher rank have greater responsibilities, and they are hence paid more per month than those of lower ranks. People who live in the DC Metro area have to pay more in rent than those in North Dakota, so they get a higher amount of locality pay in the BAH. I think it's fair, even though people are treated differently.
Gay people can't get a civil marriage license in every state, so commanders have the ability to grant free leave to them for that purpose if they are more than 100 miles away from a state which allows it. The 10 days are probably too high, and hence some will see it as unfair. I can see the point. However, and this is only sprog talking, the idea of some free leave, at least in my view, is ok.
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I don't entirely agree. Heterosexuals hide inappropriate relationships all the time. Inappropriate because the military tells them it is. Officer/enlisted relationships, affairs within commands, everyone wants to meet their "Poppa Panda Sexy Pants" but they can't. Not because society says no, but because it is against the law.
Homosexuals opennly serving in the military, while not wrong, was also illegal (with the curveball of Bill Clinton's DADT).
Love's love. It doesn't know chevrons or bars or full birds... but Love does respect the law, while the law exists. I don't think that it's any less true for a forbidden romance between hetersexuals, as it is for homosexuals.
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I drove to Rehoboth Beach last weekend with my wife. We left Friday morning (I took a day of vacation, as did she) and we returned Sunday night, in time for Breaking Bad. I'm guessing when we weren't at the beach or outlets or hotel, we probably could have found time for a wedding (again) and we still would have only used 1 day of vacation (or three if we counted the weekend)... Oh, and I drove farther than 100 miles (I also know coworkers who traveled from their house in PA to DC for work....more than 100 miles).
Maybe people should have 10 days to renew their licenses, buy their cars in sales tax free states, etc. Where does it stop?