Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Here's an appalling story about an Air Force officer who followed the rules. She wasn't asked and didn't tell, but when the police in Rapid City, South Dakota saw her marriage certificate to another woman in her home, they notified the military and she is now being kicked out of the military.
Jene Newsome played by the rules as an Air Force sergeant: She never told anyone in the military she was a lesbian.The 28-year-old's honorable discharge under the "don't ask, don't tell" policy came only after police officers in Rapid City, S.D., saw an Iowa marriage certificate in her home and told the nearby Ellsworth Air Force Base.
She's filed a federal lawsuit against the police, with the help of the ACLU. The police actually spotted the marriage license on the kitchen table by looking through the windows of her house, for crying out loud.
In the complaint filed last month with the department, ACLU South Dakota said police had no legal reason to tell the military Newsome was a lesbian and that officers knew if they did, it would jeopardize her military career..."This information was intentionally turned over because of 'don't ask, don't tell' and to out Jene so that she would lose her military status," said Robert Doody, executive director of ACLU South Dakota. The ACLU is focusing its complaint on the police department, not the military, and Newsome said she and her attorney have not yet decided on whether to file a lawsuit.
"The 'don't ask, don't tell' piece is important and critical to this, but also it's a police misconduct case," Doody said.
Politics
Comments
And this comes less than a month after Mullen and the joint chiefs announced that they will no longer discharge soldiers based on third-party outings.
This case was a serious test of that announcement.
Posted by: Jim | March 18, 2010 9:42 AM
A minor quibble: Newsome is a sergeant not an officer, and so the first sentence of the post isn't quite correct. It should read "Air Force member" or similar.
Disgusting how petty some members of the police department are being there. Seems they did this as retribution for her not being helpful enough to their investigation. Lets hope that a lawsuit does indeed succeed.
Posted by: Enigma | March 18, 2010 9:43 AM
Remind me again, why do we have police? I'm beginning to think that an anarchic citizenry armed to the teeth might not be any worse.
Posted by: James Hanley | March 18, 2010 9:43 AM
When my car gets broken into the insurance company wont take my word for it. They require a police report. Thus, that is one reason to have police.
Of course, the police just take my word for it.
Posted by: JohnV | March 18, 2010 9:48 AM
Enigma, sergeants are "non-commissioned officers", so I think "officer" is a valid shorthand.
Posted by: Squiddhartha | March 18, 2010 9:54 AM
Squiddhartha, "NCO" is the abbreviation for non-commissioned officers, not 'officer'. The term officer refers to commissioned officers in the military service, and most NCO's prefer you not call them 'sir' or 'ma'am', because (as they say) "I work for a living".
It's also immaterial to the debate - whether an officer, NOC, or airman, whether in the military 30 years or just out of basic training, what the police did was wrong. Wrong on so many levels that it's hard to keep track.
cheers-
Jo
Posted by: Jo | March 18, 2010 9:59 AM
I sometimes substituted "I know who my father was" when there weren't any officers around...
Posted by: DaveL | March 18, 2010 10:06 AM
I want to know what prompted this outing? Is this retribution for something? Back in the day, people would do this to women--whether it was true or not, often when woman refused to sleep with a suiter. Or was this religiously motivated? It is Iowa after all.
Just seems to me, there is a lot more to this story than is being told. Why would police be looking inside a private residence--were they called? And are the police or the city going to offer her a job now--after being responsible for making her unemployed?
I wonder how often in the past, these officers have outed people over various and sundry issues, for no apparent reason, than to spread hate and discontent.
Posted by: Seeing Eye Chick | March 18, 2010 10:09 AM
While I agree that the police were assholes, I thought a marriage was a public affirmation of a relationship, and thus she did tell.
JohnV: I agree it's silly, but what the insurance company gains is putting you on the hook for lying in a police report.
Posted by: Haley Chandler | March 18, 2010 10:14 AM
Seeing Eye Chick:
>blockquote>Why would police be looking inside a private residence--were they called?
It would help if you actually read the linked article. Once you've read it, let's discuss the police's possible motivations.
Posted by: Monimonika | March 18, 2010 10:34 AM
Gah! Tag fail. I should learn to preview :-(
Posted by: Monimonika | March 18, 2010 10:47 AM
Excellent police work! Justice has been done.
Posted by: barry | March 18, 2010 11:01 AM
Seeing Eye Chuck,
It was in South Dakota, not Iowa. The marriage cert was from Iowa. Ellsworth AFB is in Rapid City, South Dakota.
Haley Chandler,
I believe that you are correct. A marriage license is a public document and does count as making a public statement. SSgt Newsome new she was taking a chance by getting a marriage license so her lawsuit needs to fucus on the police misconduct. I just hope she keeps herself out of trouble. With a real opprotunity that DADT will be repealed there is a good chance that SSgt Newsome will be able to rejoin the Air Force in the near future.
Posted by: Silent Service | March 18, 2010 11:30 AM
Disgusting.
Posted by: Bourgeois_Rage | March 18, 2010 11:53 AM
I was so angry when I read this story a few days ago; it's almost unbelievable that a police department would pull this kind of stunt. What ugly people they have staffing that department.
All of the problems we have, and THIS is what the police concern themselves with? Spreading more hatred, showing more contempt, destroying others' lives...
They need to fire some people, and re-staff that department.
Absolutely disgusting...
Posted by: Bob | March 18, 2010 11:57 AM
Bob did you read the linked story?
Posted by: JohnV | March 18, 2010 11:58 AM
It's all explained in the article. The short story is:
Newsome's partner was wanted on theft charges. Newsome refused to leave work to help the police investigation. Police noticed, through a window, Newsome's marriage certificate sitting on a kitchen table. Police decided to out her as revenge.
Posted by: Brandon | March 18, 2010 12:00 PM
Silent Service at 13:
It is a public record but if the military went looking for it without notification from another party that would be the equivilent of "asking" and a violation of DADT. As for the "tell" part, the only people she isn't supposed to tell is the military. The simple fact that she has a marriage cert indicates that she had to have told someone (her spouse) that she was a lesbian. It is also unlikely that it was a secret shared only between the two of them until the police came along.
Needless to say, all this silly hair- pulling could be done away with if DADT was repealed and gays and lesbians could serve openly. It is pretty obvious that DADT has only served to placate those that are the cause of the problem instead of fixing the problem. Sadly, that may have been the intended purpose of DADT.
Posted by: Jeremy Shaffer | March 18, 2010 12:03 PM
Why is my B.S. meter quivering over this part?
Posted by: Chilidog | March 18, 2010 12:21 PM
As one person asked...
What are the police for???
For the individual they are useless and unnecessary.
They CANNOT protect anyone from anyone else!!!! Its a myth and lie that they are there to 'protect & serve'.
They can pull over speeders to make money because it wont affect save driving. They can stop drunks after they are sure it isn't anyone important. They can break into homes as long as it is not a real drug place because they would be shoot at in a real criminal activity.
THEIR MAIN JOB is to insure the continued operation of the STATUS QUO.
Posted by: CybrgnX | March 18, 2010 12:31 PM
You know, when DADT was first announced, I actually thought it was a pretty good compromise. Just another thing to add to the very long list of times I have been wrong.
I'm proud of my country for allowing gay, lesbian, bi, and transgender folks to serve openly since 1992. Of course, I'm still pretty pissed off with Canada's government today for being incredibly stupid.
Posted by: Captain Mike | March 18, 2010 12:36 PM
They have a Facebook page up for Jene and they are asking people to contact the Rapid City Mayor and Rapid City Council. What happened to this young women is totally wrong...the police outed her and DADT is a stupid policy.
Justice for Jene!
Posted by: J. Dakota | March 18, 2010 1:32 PM
I can't wait for the day DADT is gone. So many honorable men and women are denied the chance to serve, and have suffered public humiliation just to placate a minority of bigots.
Posted by: Madrocketscientist | March 18, 2010 1:33 PM
Here is the link to the Facebook Page. They are asking people to contact the Rapid City Mayor and Council
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Justice-for-Jene/10150144768805524?ref=nf
Posted by: J. Dakota | March 18, 2010 1:34 PM
Did anyone else notice that they refer to her wife, throughout, as her "partner"? This in a story about the fact that the police told the Air Force she's married to another woman.
Posted by: Vicki | March 18, 2010 1:38 PM
James Hanley @3:
Very few anarchist visions of the provision of social safety rely on "a citizenry armed to the teeth." The anarcho-capitalists come closest when they envision most issues being resolved by some form of privatized equivalent of the existing police. And, even their (seriously warped) vision would be better than what we have now, as 1) a non-monopoly force would have to temper their actions based on what the competing police forces would tolerate, 2) those typically abused by the police would at least not have to pay for them, and 3) any abuses by one force would likely be investigated by competing forces (and so the abuses would be less likely to be rubber-stamped as okay).
Posted by: Miko | March 18, 2010 2:35 PM
the officer just happened to notice a marriage license on the table while peeking through a window, and figured it had to be relevant to the investigation of another person and needed to be reported to the air force which somehow they knew was the employer of the non-investigated person who wasn't aiding the police enough?
screw that.
Posted by: rob | March 18, 2010 3:10 PM
Here's the original article.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_lesbian_sergeant_discharged
Posted by: Owen | March 18, 2010 3:33 PM
Jim,
Actually this happened about a month before Mullen's announcement. The incident occurred in November, she was discharged in January.
Still makes it shitty, but not hypocritical with the 3rd party stance recently adopted.
Posted by: dogmeatib | March 18, 2010 3:39 PM
I'm trying to figure out what the police could mean when they say that the information about the marriage license was properly part of the information they provided to the Air Force. Why did they provide ANY information to the Air Force? Jene wasn't under investigation by the Air Force. It was her partner who was being investigated, and by the civilian authorities. There was no need to say a word to the Air Force. The only conceivable reason for the police to have talked to the Air Force would have been if they needed her urgently to come home and she said she had to work, in which case they might have been justified in asking the Air Force to let her off work. Even that case, there was no need to give the Air Force any information about Jene other than that they needed her help, and in any case, there's no suggestion that they actually needed her to be home. If they had a valid reason to search the house, they could have obtained a warrant and done it without her being present, and if they just wanted to talk to her, they could perfectly well do it by telephone, as they did.
Posted by: Bill Poser | March 18, 2010 4:23 PM
One other little thing. They were married. I believe there is a presumption that one is not required to give evidence (for or against) one's spouse, marriage being considered close enough to qualify for the Fifth (a married couple is, in many ways, considered a single person under law, much like corps are). So the cops had no call pressuring her for help in the first place.
Or am I thinking of a different country? Or just dreaming and getting senile?
Posted by: Gray Gaffer | March 18, 2010 6:18 PM
In South Dakota, there is no same-sex marriage. Therefore, legally speaking, there would be no "wife" for the South Dakota police to report. Putting "wife" in a report and faxing it to the Air Force was meant to alert the United States Air Force to the presence of a lesbian on the air force base.
Also, this means that the Rapid City Police Department can be sent to your house and then report to a sundry number of agencies whatever they found inside, even if what they found has nothing to do with their agency. What if, for instance, they discovered the homeowners are lesbians, but the children of the lesbians are in the Catholic school? Should they make a report to the Catholic school? Now, the Catholic school can kick the lesbians' kids out of the Catholic school because of the parents' sexual orientation. That's what the Archbishop of Denver, Charles Chaput, is doing to the kids of lesbians at Sacred Heart of Jesus School in Boulder, Colorado. Archbishop Charles Chaput is kicking the little children out of the school in the name of Jesus. Is it right that police departments can, in practice, start making irrelevant reports and get innocent people punished? Is that the kind of world you want to live in? Do you want a world where your local police are standing in every shadow to take notes on your private life? I think not.
Posted by: DeeJay | March 18, 2010 6:25 PM
You're quoting a common misunderstanding of DADT. The rules do not say that if you don't tell, then you won't get discharged.
In fact, the DoDI we spoke of last time specifically says that "credible information" from a "reliable person" that a servicemember has married a person of the same sex is "a basis for discharge."
Homosexual conduct is still cause for discharge, despite DADT. If the military finds out someone is homosexual, that is grounds for discharge. The only restriction is that the military cannot proactively seek that information.
Posted by: JD | March 18, 2010 7:02 PM
Every time I do a Venn diagram of cops and assholes it slides closer and closer to congruency.
Posted by: Digital Amish | March 18, 2010 9:02 PM
I live just a few miles from Ellsworth Air Force Base and have been a resident of Rapid City for 40 plus years and I am so discussed with what our ploice department has done. If they belived that there suspect was in the residence then they should of gotten a search warrent this crap about looking in the window and seeing a marriage cit laying on the kitchen table was not relevent to the case they were there to serve a warrent not get into someone elses bus. She had nothing to do with the case at hand they were mad cuz she would not rush home and help them do THERE job so to get back at her they took it upon themselfs to report to her First shirt who she is. Again nothing to do with the case there were there for. RCPD should focues more on what will help Rapid City not on something like this way to go guys and you wonder why nobody trust the police
Posted by: hgw | March 20, 2010 12:48 AM
Jeremy Shaffer @ 18,
Here is the Air Force policy on Homosexual Conduct ( http://milcom.jag.af.mil/ch07/homosexual.doc ) from the Judge Advocate General's office. Any homosexual conduct that becomes public knowledge is banned. Under the Air Force list of actions that constitute homosexual conduct is this line item;
-- Homosexual marriage or attempted homosexual marriage
It sucks big time, but that's the policy. And it isn't whether you tell the Air Force, it's whether they hear about it from what is considered a credible (if asinine) source. The only real way to make sure the Air Force never finds out is to never tell anybody, which is unrealistic unless you enjoy being miserable and alone. It has lead so such incredible levels of paranoia that even now after being retired for two years I've told only about a dozen people that I'm Bi. I still work for the Air Force as a civilian and I don’t know what many of my coworkers would think or how they would react. I’m slowly shaking off the paranoia though. I love working for the Air Force. I just wish it wasn’t full of quite so many asshats.
Posted by: Silent Service | March 22, 2010 4:34 PM