Joe Biden has moved to correct a “great injustice” by pardoning thousands of US veterans convicted over six decades under a military law that banned gay sex.
The presidential proclamation, which comes during Pride month and an election year, allows LGBTQ+ service members convicted of crimes based solely on their sexual orientation to apply for a certificate of pardon that will help them receive withheld benefits.
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It grants clemency to service members convicted under Uniform Code of Military Justice article 125 – which criminalised sodomy, including between consenting adults – between 1951 and 2013, when it was rewritten by Congress.
That includes victims of the 1950s “lavender scare”, a witch-hunt in which many LGBTQ+ people employed by the federal government were viewed as security risks amid fears their sexual orientation made them vulnerable to blackmail. Thousands were investigated and fired or denied employment.
Thanks for sharing these. There has really been a bunch of good to come out of this administration. Much of it isn’t flashy stuff that gets talked about, but there is a lot that really should be important to a lot of people.
I think Biden has exceeded most expectations many of us had for him. There are always going to be things presidents do that we won’t agree with. Obama was also pretty crappy with immigrants, drone strikes, and a number of other things, but it seems we’re able to look back at his terms as a net positive. If Biden didn’t have to clean up after Trump and Covid, I think he could have been a very memorable president.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m very pissed about Gaza and the border, but Gaza is a result of almost 100 years of bad policy of many parties, and the number of regular people still bitching about false immigration stories is pressuring all representatives to be harsh on that. We can only expect a president to do so much if a large swath of Congress and the people themselves are against something.
Gaza is absolutely indefensible. Immigration is very limited. He doesn’t have to power to allocate funding for immigrants. He left the border open for over a year while pressing Congress to do their job and pass immigration reform. Now sanctuary cities are over capacity, leaving many migrants homeless. The state funding has run out, and all Biden can control is law and border policy.
We have so much empty space in much of the country, I dont know why we can’t just build a few cities for them. I’m not sure the cost of these detention centers vs a functioning town, but if we gave them real housing, infrastructure, and gave them a place to work and earn income during their asylum or immigration process, it sounds much less cruel and more productive, and would treat them like human beings and get a start on building a life here.
We absolutely could. We could also just supplement funding for sanctuary cities to purchase more vacant buildings for shelter. We could also tailor the 1986 immigration system to the very different needs of the migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers of today.
Unfortunately, that’s entirely up to our dysfunctional Congress.
We don’t even need to build new cities. We just need to let our cities increase density like all cities did for hundreds of years before the 50s. More multifamily buildings, midrise apartments, and mixed use buildings would go a long way towards helping everybody.
Besides, much of that land is either already owned by somebody or empty for a reason. It would be a logistical nightmare for sure. You could send them to all the dying towns in the US, but I don’t think that would help either - apart from the locals being rightfully angry about large groups of new people coming in and eroding their local culture, those towns are dying for a reason that runs much deeper than just people moving away.
