Mar 14, 2010
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Work – Rapid City Police Illegally Out Sergeant To Air Force
Air Force Sergeant Jene Newsome was not asked and did not tell yet she is still the victim of a homophobic police department and an unjust military policy of discrimination against Gay and Lesbian service members. This terrible injustice must be overturned. Jene Newsome’s only crime was legally marrying someone she loved.
The couple was legally married in Iowa. There would be no issue if Sergeant Newsome had married a male stranger she had met on the streets of Iowa City but she followed her heart and wed the person she loved.
There can not be two sets of laws governing our country. One set for the white christian heterosexuals and another for the rest of us. Had the Newsomes been a heterosexual white couple would the police forward the marriage certificate to the Air Force? Of course not! Sergeant Newsome is being punished because the Rapid City South Dakota Police Department believes discrimination and violence against the Gay and Lesbian community is acceptable.
Former Air Force sergeant Jene (jeh-NAY’) Newsome says she played by the rules. She never told anyone in the military that she was a lesbian.
But Newsome was discharged earlier this year under the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” law after Rapid City, S.D., police officers saw an Iowa marriage license in her home and told the Ellsworth Air Force Base.
The police were at Newsome’s home in November with an arrest warrant for her partner, who was wanted on theft charges in Alaska.
Newsome and the American Civil Liberties Union have filed a complaint against the department claiming police invaded her privacy.
Rapid City Police Chief Steve Allender says Newsome was uncooperative, and the marriage license was relevant because it established the residency and the relationship of the two women.
Contact your members of Congress immediately and demand that the militaries discriminatory Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy be repeal.
The Justice Department must launch a full investigation into the horrific treatment of Gay and Lesbian Americans by the bigots running the Rapid City Police Department. Contact Police Chief Steve Allender and ask why it was necessary to forward the legal marriage license to the Air Force and why his department is targeting Gays and Lesbians in Rapid City. The police department also has a citizens survey that everyone should fill out.
[...] by the Los Angles Police Department and illegal harassment of a Lesbian Air Force Sergeant by the Rapid City Police Department. Who is policing the police? Why are these christian terrorist not being screened out in the [...]