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.
But bothsidesaame? (/s)
lol at the 6 (at the time of writing this) trump supporters that downvoted you and are cool with trump pardoning convicted killers, his own sycophants that were convicted of federal crimes, and people that gave him bribes for his presidential pardons at the 11th hour; but not cool with pardoning people wrongfully convicted of a bigoted piece of propaganda turned law with “Don’t ask, Don’t Tell”.
I’d all but guarantee those 6 people are well-known “anti-genocide” bots here on lemmy.
I wonder if the bots realize they’re really not helping their cause, at all.
I like the part of the election cycle when some good things are allowed to happen.
I don’t even blame Biden for waiting. Americans have such short memories that getting elected means having to hold some things in reserve, and getting reelected or passing the office on are genuinely important factors. It just sucks that people had to wait.
Congrats to everyone helped by this!
There have been good things throughout Biden’s entire term. They just get overshadowed by the barrage of news about the bad.
Biden rejoined the Paris Climate Agreement, revoked the Keystone Pipeline permit, created a 13 million acre federal petroleum reserve for Alaskan wildlife, greatly increased oil site lease cost, signed $7B in solar subsidies, enacted the Inflation Reduction act to support clean energy, leveraged the NLRB for an FTC ruling that eliminated non-compete agreements, capped credit card late fees, reduced or outlawed junk fees in several industries, forgave billions in student debt from predatory loans, created the CHIPS Act to improve reliance on domestic technology, reenacted Net Neutrality, repealed Title 42, ended the Muslim Ban, reinstated the law prohibiting Israeli settlement on Palestinian territory, signed the Equality Act for LGBTQ+ rights, restored gay rights to beneficiaries, reenacted trans care anti-discrimination law, signed the Respect for Marriage Act, enabled unspecified gender on US Passports, pardoned thousands of gay veterans from being convicted based on their sexual orientation, rejoined WHO, rescheduled marijuana, banned medical debt from credit reports, actively reducing drug costs with the American Rescue Plan Act…
Just one thing. He only technically ended title 42 immigration restrictions. Effectively he continued Trump’s policies with his own, slightly different policy.
He repealed the Muslim ban on March 6, 2021. He overturned Title 42 on May 11, 2023. There were no Presidential border restrictions in place until recently. He spent that time pressing Congress to pass immigration reform and they failed. With sanctuary cities over capacity, and no federal funding, he needed to begin to restrict entry again.
I’m just aware that Trump would be worse for Palestinians, so the intelligent decision would come from weighing the other factors.
Trump repealed 112 climate regulations, left the Paris Climate Agreement, disbanded the pandemic response team stalling national pandemic response, left the WHO, repealed trans care anti-discrimination law, repealed gay rights to beneficiaries, enacted Title 42 and the Muslim ban, repealed the law prohibiting Israeli settlements on Palestinian territory, repealed Net Neutrality, provided tax cuts to the wealthy that further widened our already exploitative wealth inequality, increased tariffs on goods costing the consumers, seated the conservatives in SCOTUS that repealed Roe v. Wade…
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.
It seems Biden likes to make things happen withiut making a big deal about it, because in a perfect world that sounds like a good thing. Just get stuff done!
But the Dems as a whole need to get better at messaging their victories so they get the credit, which I understand is hard when rage bait sells, but if nobody knows they can’t counter the conservative lies.
He tried to take victory laps. The problem is he tried to take one on the economy for several months in a row which led to people seeing him as disconnected and only working for the finance sector. His messaging has been absolute garbage this election cycle and if any one other than Trump was running we’d already be getting ready for the next Republican president.
Good work shouldnt have to be shouted about, but well the hearts and minds of men are of questionable capacity for reason.
why? no one’s on the fence so parroting this doesn’t convince anyone; so it only serves to alienate other leftists voters.
if your approval for biden’s track record only spans the last 3 years instead of all 51, then you’re going to vote for him anyways; meanwhile people who have been watching him for decades are reminded of his true colors in these parroting the transparently feels-good/does-nothing actions.
it’s toxic positivity.
If only there were a way to enact policies that would provide long term tangible impact to people’s lives such that they could wake up every day and say, “yeah the president is doing a good job…”
Im not discounting what he’s doing, I’m just saying that there’s a reason why FDR got elected three times and would have been elected more if term limits weren’t instituted.
Great job, Democrats. He’s was VP for 8 years while Obama was president. Didn’t do it then. And now you do this at the end of Biden’s 4 years and he’s dropping in polls to Felon Donny. Sure, we’ll forget all about the workers’ rights being trampled and the genocide in Gaza.
We have such great choices. A Douche and Turd.
Yeah, and you’re going to vote for the douche, unless you want the orange turd to change your country in an autocratic dictatorship.
You might want to read into how politics works. Biden condens Israel and promptly will lose the next election because Israel has quite the influence in the Jewish population. He loses the election, trump will win andy dear DAMunzy, if you think Palestinians have it bad now, wait until orange dictator comes to power. I believe his words were along the lines of “total eradication”.
Biden has done a large number of great things, which I never hear people talk about. I do hear talks about situations where there is no good outcome,.damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
What would you have done? Condemn Israel, take away all their money? That would totally not backfire about 6 months from now… Carefully mention to Israel to behave? I’ve seen Biden do that, for all the good it did… So do whstz exactly?
Quick question
Why didn’t he do that 3 years ago when he got into office
This, and responsible Presidents usually have the pardon recipients reviewed and screened, as I understand things.
Thousands. There was a point in time last year or whenever where that number was 100 or 1000 or even 1.
Could’ve pardoned that person then.
If Trump somehow gets back in the WH, expect these veterans to get rebanned.
