US President Joe Biden has granted amnesty to thousands of former military members who were previously convicted under a military law prohibiting homosexual relations. Amnestied people will be able to enjoy privileges granted to veterans, but from which until now they were excluded due to their conviction.
Amnesty also for the “lavender boys”
In the United States, article 125 of the military criminal law code, in force until 2013, punished sodomy even between consenting and consensual people. Many people in the army have been convicted on the basis of sexual orientation. A very sad and sensational case was that of the lavender scare (homosexuals were derogatorily defined as lavender boys). At the time, the opinion spread in government institutions and the army that LGBTQ+ people could be a risk to national security: hence many phenomena of discrimination, of people being investigated or even fired. From the White House they say that the amnesty will also concern those who were involved in that affair.
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Previously amnesty for marijuana possession
“Today I am righting a historic wrong,” Biden commented, specifying that the decision wants the culture in the army to reflect that of American society. At the end of 2023, President Biden granted amnesty to those who had been federally convicted of using or possessing marijuana. Biden supported that choice by speaking of “realizing the promise of equal justice” because historically drug convictions, whatever the violation, affected black or Hispanic people more than white ones.
