Two years into the relatively uneventful implementation of the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, it may seem strange that gay and lesbian service members are still technically barred from having sex. Article 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice however, is technically still in effect. Article 125 makes it a criminal offense to “engage in unnatural carnal copulation” with “another person of the same or opposite sex or with an animal.”
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The reason Article 125 is still on the books at all is because in 2011, when Democrats tried to get rid of it, the religious right howled that the left was making it acceptable for members of the military to have sex with animals. When Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, got wind of the plan he wrote that “in its rush to accommodate the Left, Congress may have inadvertently opened the door to even more perversion.” Asked what they thought of the new proposal to alter Article 125, a spokesperson pointed msnbc to Perkins’ 2011 post, titled, “Bestiality Should Give Leaders Paws.”
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Repealing Article 125 wouldn’t have stopped the military from prosecuting bestiality because of rules that prohibit “all disorders and neglects to the prejudice of good order and discipline” and “conduct of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces,” according to Breasseale. Nevertheless, the uproar was enough to persuade legislators to strip the proposal to remove Article 125, which was approved by the Senate, from the final version of defense bill.
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Udall, Gillibrand and Shaheen have taken into account what happened last time around. The new proposal retains prohibitions on “forcible sodomy” and “bestiality,” but alters Article 125 so that it no longer criminalizes gay and lesbian service members’ consensual sexual activity. Even so, it’s not clear that Republicans are any less opposed to altering Article 125 than they were two years ago.