A member of the New Hampshire National Guard will be allowed to attend an upcoming Yellow Ribbon event with her same-sex partner, Defense Department officials said Wednesday.
Chief Warrant Officer Charlie Morgan, who returned recently from a deployment in Kuwait and made headlines when she came out in the national media following repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” said earlier this week that she was not authorized to bring her partner of 11 years to a required-attendance Yellow Ribbon Reintegration Program event.
On Tuesday, New Hampshire senator Jean Shaheen sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta regarding the matter and urged the department to “allow same-sex couples to participate in all future DOD family events.”
Pentagon spokeswoman Eileen Lainez told The Advocate late Wednesday that same-sex partners or spouses are allowed to attend such events:
"According to applicable law and DOD policy, a member of the uniformed services who is eligible to attend a Yellow Ribbon Reintegration Program event may designate one or more people of his/her choosing to attend," Lainez said in an email response.
Lainez said the Defense Department "has received [Senator Shaheen's] letter and will respond to her as appropriate. We have also addressed this issue with the New Hampshire National Guard."
Shaheen, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a Wednesday statement, “This is terrific news for Charlie Morgan and her family. But this is just one small part of a much larger problem. We have a fundamental inequity in our policy, which has created two classes of soldiers. It isn’t fair and it has to end.”
In an interview published Monday, Morgan told the Portsmouth Herald, “The purpose [of the Yellow Ribbon program] is to reconnect the families. My unit wants to meet my family, but it's out of their hands," she said, referring to the Defense of Marriage Act.
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