West Point "Wedding"'s Honor

Brenda Sue Fulton's nuptials at the United States Military Academy at West Point made the news in grand style.

At last reading in July of 2011, Brenda Fulton was appointed by President Obama to USMA's Board of Visitors and she describes herself as having many "informal allies" at West Point. She is also a self-described homosexual (and lesbian and trans-gender) activist and she has major roles in the organizations Knights Out and OutServe. The same-sex ceremony held a week or so earlier at West Point involved friends of Fulton. 

Consequently, these ceremonies look less like a case of West Point grads who just wanted to be married at their alma mater and more like a political ploy on the part of homosexual activists who used West Point's prestige and prominence as the backdrop for showing us how the military will behave in Obama's second term. 

Though the legal facts may be arguable if not downright abstruse, it appears that the United States Military Academy at West Point, which is on federal property, did not have to agree to host Brenda Fulton's lesbian ceremony had West Point chosen to honor DOMA which is still the law regarding marriage as approved by Congress.    Family Research Council (FRC) says,    According to Johnson, decisions about military facilities should be made on a "sexual-orientation neutral basis." And while the "wedding" may have been consistent with Johnson's memo, the DOD's general counsel is no substitute for the 427 elected members of Congress who voted to define marriage as the union of a man and woman for the government's purposes. That means it affects federal employees (which Fulton is) and federal property (where West Point resides). The President may vehemently disagree with the law--but until the Supreme Court overturns it or Congress rejects it, DOMA is still the law of the land.

Earlier in the article FRC characterizes West Point as moving away from the rule of law which seems accurate even though technically the so-called wedding may not have been illegal.  However, as pointed out here,  LGBT Think Progress reports that DOMA merely says that  as pertaining to any federal regulation,  the word 'marriage' refers to the union of one man and one woman.  The article says that it is an " incredible stretch to interpret this language such that a same-sex wedding is somehow illegal merely because the resulting union is not recognized by the federal government."

 

Not so it seems to me.  In fact, seems to me that's the crux of the matter for Fulton and those she represents--to have same sex "marriages" recognized to be on the exact same plane as traditional marriages defined as being between one man and one woman.  If the federal government doesn't recognize Fulton's union as a marriage, what did she actually accomplish at West Point's Cadet Chapel?

 

Duty, Honor, Country.  West Point graduates do not behave honorably when they opportunistically exploit their alma mater  as a way to force others to cave to their demands.