The Impact of DADT Repeal on Servicemembers’ Children

American FlagThe military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) ban on openly lesbian and gay servicemembers is now gone. In a piece for Keen News Service, I took a look at how repeal of DADT will impact the children of these servicemembers.

I’m not the only one to explore this issue, however. Stars and Stripes magazine, a Department of Defense-authorized daily newspaper for the military community, profiled two lesbian mom couples.

Not to be outdone, Reuters did a nice photo essay on a lesbian mom couple, both of whom are in the Navy.

Casey McLaughlin, who is raising twins with her spouse, a serving Army officer, shares her story with the Family Equality Council.

And Nancy Polikoff, an expert in LGBT family law, offered her own take on the matter, reminding us (among other things) that if the non-biological mom of a couple was in the military, and the couple split up, “the bio mom has had the heavy weapon of threatening to out her ex-partner if she tried to maintain a relationship with their children.” No more.

Difficulties still remain for these families, mostly because of the Defense of Marriage Act, as I explain in my KNS piece. (Stars and Stripes and Reuters discuss this, too.) But repeal of DADT has eased some of their burdens.

2 thoughts on “The Impact of DADT Repeal on Servicemembers’ Children”

  1. Thanks for the roundup!

    Sidenote: Your ad generating program has some funny associations. The one I just got (while in Google Reader) was for a Christian singles site. Another time, there was an ad for a kids’ book along the lines of “all girls like pink!”. Underneath a post about trans kids. I’m not irritated, just entertained.

  2. Urp. That’s Google Ads making those associations. Automated ad servers have their uses, but can sometimes be off target. When I do catch ads that I think are inappropriate, I can block them. If you let me know the Web addresses of any such ads you see (it should be in text on the ad somewhere), I’ll check them out for possible blacklisting. Thanks!

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