DOMA decision makes marriage meaningful for military

By: Amanda H. Miller

When Air Force Maj. Jeff Mueller moves to Los Angeles from Colorado Springs in January, the military will probably cover his fiancé Eric Gustafson’s moving expenses and offer an extra housing allowance for the couple – benefits that have traditionally only been available to heterosexual married couples.

Because the Supreme Court struck down the portion of the Defense of Marriage Act limiting federal benefits only to straight married couples last month, the Department of Defense will begin to extend full benefits to same-sex military spouses “as soon as possible,” the Pentagon said in a statement after the ruling.

“This is great timing,” Mueller said. “LA is not a cheap place to live. The extra housing allowance and the moving expenses – hopefully all of this is going to make the whole move a lot less stressful.”

Mueller, who works in missile defense at Schriever Air Force Base, expects he’ll even be able to transfer the remainder of his GI Bill benefits to help Gustafson pay for his doctorate.

Even though the two have been together for eight years – since the days of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell when their relationship would have been grounds for Mueller’s dismissal – the Air Force never considered Gustafson in Mueller’s assignments before.

Both Mueller and Air Force reservist Ashley Metcalf had scares early in their military careers when friends told them they were being investigated for homosexual activity. If the investigations would have turned up any evidence, these career military men could have lost their positions.

For Metcalf, who is in the reserve at Buckley Air Force Base, the DOMA decision isn’t just about benefits.

“Tears came to my eyes when I heard,” Metcalf said. “It’s a weird feeling. I understand the weight of it all. I’ve been to Iraq and Afghanistan. I’ve been to those places and I come home and don’t have the benefit of loving who I want to love and that made me crazy.”

He’s never taken a partner to a military function before and he never used to think of marriage as an option.

But that’s all changing now – in part because of his current boyfriend and in part because it’s suddenly imaginable, he said.

Who will be eligible for spousal benefits?

There are still a lot of questions about how the Pentagon will make benefits available and who will be eligible.

“When it comes to the military, they were actually starting to move forward anyway, even without the Supreme Court decision,” said John Kelly, president of the Rocky Mountain chapter of American Veterans for Equal Rights. “If the court had ruled differently, it might have slowed things down. But it was already happening.”

Before he left office in February, former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta started working on developing a framework for extending at least some military benefits to same-sex couples and said they would be more extensive if DOMA was eliminated.

Mueller said he and his fiancé are planning a wedding after their big move to California. They want to have a ceremony and reception and invite all their friends and family. Whether they wait until they can have a full wedding to make it official or not depends on how the military extends benefits to same-sex couples.

Leaders in LGBT military and veterans advocacy groups, such as OutServe-SLDN and AVER, say the military could limit benefits to military couples officially married in one of the 13 states where it’s legal, or extend them to couples in civil unions and domestic partnerships.

If the defense department extends benefits to couples in domestic partnerships, Mueller and his fiancé will most likely get the approval they need for Gustafson to be eligible. If a civil union is required, they can do that here in Colorado and save the ceremony for after the move. If they must be legally married, they might go to California and make it official ahead of the move, putting the ceremony off until they’ve had a chance to settle into their new home in LA.

Mueller said he expects word to come down about how benefits will be extended within six to 12 weeks.

“Everybody is just kind of waiting for this information to come out,” Mueller said. “But the information flow has been pretty good.”

Uncertain impact on already–discharged veterans

“There’s a lot of information still going out about whether there will be benefits for veterans or not,” Kelly said.

For now, it appears benefits will be limited to veterans who have been officially married in states that legally recognize same-sex marriage, he said. And there are questions about whether the Department of Veterans Affairs will extend benefits to the same-sex spouses of officially married veterans if they don’t currently live in a state that recognizes their marriage.

But Kelly said he expects veterans’ benefits will continue evolving and will follow those for active duty military personnel.

“I think you’re going to see a very quick move coming out of Washington for all federal agencies,” Kelly said. “That’s partly because the Obama administration has been solid behind it. The move is not just going to be with the military, but pretty much all federal agencies are going to have to be the first. Obama is not going to sit on it.”